Nobuko Tsuchiya

Nobuko Tsuchiya’s assemblages are primitive inventions. Antennae, rags, plastic tubing, and an old pair of shoes stand in for the workings of hi-tech equipment, their functions as obscure as some of the objects which compose them

It’s this design element of Nobuko Tsuchiya’s work which is most alluring. Each sculpture revels in its impoverished minimalism, almost zen-like its poetic accuracy, while at the same time alluding to an ancient and un-evolved Japanese Pop.

Sister of Nike could be a satellite dish, Your Chair an atomically fuelled cartoon prank, and Table Rabbit has something just a little too Hello Kitty™ about it.

Formed from spindly make-shift pipes and air ducts, there’s something sinister underlying Nobuko Tsuchiya’s Luddite cutesy-ness.

Haywire tubes feeding to and from dishes of mysterious liquid, ‘electronic’ connections held together with wooden clothes pegs, and vials suspended with bits of string: there’s an overwhelming possibility that her experiments might explode at any moment.

“Not everything is as it appears in my work, not everything is done on purpose. My decisions are made by using what you could call a different form of thinking, and are made to operate between harmony and discord, control and the lack of it. I always try to develop the conversation between the things in my work and myself. Maybe this sounds idiotic, but it is my honest feeling."

Nobuko Tsuchiya "different form of thinking" and quietly dramatic feel for her materials result in works that are at once threatening and beguiling.

Each sculpture revels in its impoverished minimalism, almost zen-like its poetic accuracy, while at the same time alluding to an ancient and un-evolved Japanese Pop.