C O 2 * [art + sustainability]: Noriko Ambe's Inner Water Flow

A piece of flat globe, vol. 5, cut on Yupo, glue

Artist Statement

by Noriko Ambe

After getting aware of the viewpoint of an "empty self," I started in 1999 a series of works using paper, titled "Linear-Actions Projects by Drawing and Cutting." It looks like annual rings of a tree or topographical map or wave, but it isn't. It is absolutely the traces of actions of a person, which is me.

So to speak, I have been mapping the mysterious land between physical and emotional geography. I want to attain something sublime. The entrance of the way is detail. The detail is the key point of nature, and we are part of nature. Even though the actions are simple, I do not try to draw / cut mechanical or perfect lines in my work, for subtle natural distortions convey the nuances of human emotions, habits, or biorhythm. For this reason, I take care to make all works by hand.

Linear-Actions Cutting Project 1,2000, Cuts on 288 pages of sketch book
11 5/8 x 16 7/8 x 1 3/8 inches (29.6 x 42.8 x 3.4 cm), (p) Atsushi Takada

Linear-Actions Cutting Project 5 (detail), 2001, Cuts on 100 sheets of Yupo, Acrylic case
11 5/8 x 8 1/4 x 1 inches (29.6 x 21 x 2.4 cm)

When I am drawing or cutting lines, I am interested in observing the power of the changing growing shape. This dynamic shape becomes an entity in itself, "Another geography." In a sense, the empty space is myself, and the materials represent the present world. Cutting book work is like collaboration for me. And it is important to choose the materials carefully because printed matter conveys a message automatically. The relationship between the linear actions and the materials is like the relationship between human beings and their restricted environment, a connection that is interested in me, too.

Art Victims : Damien Hirst,2009, Cut on a catalogue of "Damien Hirst"
12(H) x 28 3/4(W) x 1 5/8(D) inches (framed) (30.5(H) x 73(W) x 4(D) cm)

Detail of Double Sides: Gilbert & George, 2010, Cut book, metal cabinet, plexiglass
12 3/4(H) x 5 1/2(W) x 16(D), 32.4(H) x 14(W) x 40.6(D) cm, (p) by Genevieve Hanson

Double Sides: Gilbert & George, 2010, Cut book, metal cabinet, plexiglass
12 3/4(H) x 11(W) x 16(D), 32.4(H) x 27.9(W) x 40.6(D) cm, (p) by Tsukasa Yokozawa

For the new type of Yupo paper sculpture project, using metal cabinets with drawers, called “Flat file globe" series has started since the last solo show 2006. The work is a metaphor of human body and also the cross section of consecutive time stream and present. That is collaborating with minimal industrial materials and my organic cutting lines. I also came to use negative forms deriving from cutouts also. I entitle them "Sculpaper." The works multiply day by day.

Using the five senses, perceiving the natural qualities of the materials, I found that I am concerned less about the end, and more about "doing". The process of creating is equally as important as the finished work.

Flat File Globe 1 (detail), 2006, Cuts on Yupo, metal cabinet
12 3/4 x 11 x 16 1/8 inches (32.5 x 27.9 x 40.8 cm)

Flat File Globe 1 (detail) 2006, Cuts on Yupo, metal cabinet
12 3/4 x 11 x 16 1/8 inches (32.5 x 27.9 x 40.8 cm)

Noriko Ambe, Inner Water, 027 (p)The Warehouse @ SU

Inner Water

It has been a year since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami hit a quarter of the main Island of Japan on March 11, 2011.
The disaster took over 20,000 people’s lives and crippled the nuclear plant in Fukushima. We were helpless. Those events totally changed our sense of values, and everything else.

Mementoes, 2011
130 paper boarts made of magazines featuered "Japan Earthquake and Tsunami disaster, 2011"
Sizes vary

A piece of flat globe vol. 5

flat globe, 2008, white cutting, vol.1 (detail)

Lands of Emptiness, 2008

This summer I visited the disaster area in Rikuzentakata, Japan; after that I visited the beach on Long Island. In both places I focused on or met the sea.
In Rikuzentakata, the colors on the mountains where the Tsumani had reached were divided into two completely different tones. I could see the water despite its having already receded.

Noriko Ambe, Inner Water, 034

As human beings, we can’t breathe in the sea, we will die. It surpasses us -- as though our bodies are “against” the sea and nature. But at the same time, using our imagination we can also synchronize with the sea when we try to listen to it inside our bodies, to awaken unconscious memories.

These kinds of repeating cycles in my mind cause me to reconnect to the sea and nature from a new standpoint. Now, I feel that I’m standing on the edge of the present moment.

As my installation, I was trying to use the negative space surrounding the paper pieces to express "invisible water" as a metaphor of unconscious realm.