Yoshiko Nakahara’s work in Long Story is the most complex arrangement of ideas and forms produced to date by the artist, executed with Nakahara’s customary finesse. An obsessive attention to the detail of minute forms produces Nakahara’s singular aesthetic and a quirky point of view which those familiar with her practice will recognise at once. However, the works have developed a thematic richness, augmenting the exquisite intricacy of her forms with an in-depth look at questions of human experience, particularly her own.
This body of work refers to the artist’s life and desires over the past five years. Nakahara’s reflections on the cycles of nature create visual metaphors for transient phases of life and corresponding phases of larger cultural cycles within societies and civilisations: “We are able to see and acknowledge the natural cycles and elements as simple and beautiful, but they are also very complex, integrated and fragile systems…like life.”
Having lived most of her life in Japan, with the last five years in New Zealand, Nakahara naturally feels a strong bond and affinity with both cultures. She also feels that this makes her life complex in many ways: “Kihon (Basis) is more personal. Since I have been living in overseas I feel I am living a rootless life which is at once flexible but is linked to a sense of floating between different cultural worlds.”The artist metaphorically draws attention to the complexity and fragility of this ‘floating’ life by depicting diverse and intricate organic forms with her almost unfathomably delicate mark-making.
As with Nakahara’s previous work, detail is minutely picked out using the finest ink pen that can be procured. For each work the artist has conceived a distinctive system of marks which she uses in repetitive patterns to describe the overall form. Small works such as Nantoka (Squeeze) and Michishio (Flood Tide) are made up exclusively of these marks in varying size, spacing and thickness to delineate the forms and patterns.
Larger works such as Kaiki (Cycle) and Futtemo Haretemoare (Rain or Shine), though still made up of thousands of small strokes that conform to a chosen pattern (take the disc forms in Futtemo Haretemoare (Rain or Shine) for example), they also utilize light and perspective to evoke a blend of actual and imagined worlds. What seems initially to depict a ‘real’ scene breaks apart into a fractured picture plane on closer inspection - a still-satisfying and intricate series of vignettes that go toward the impression of a coherent whole.
Although the imagery for the work derives from nature, Nakahara conceptualizes these forms into a unique pattern of her own: “Over the last few years, my works have relied on taking motifs from nature such as flowers, trees and plants. The beauty of nature has always been a strong feature of my work. However, while nature certainly is evident in my current work, my preoccupations are with describing abstract concepts such as what I think, feel and want. I no longer want my work to rely on actual motifs but to harness aspects of nature in a way which is all my own.”