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Artist Statement, 2026

Noriko Ambe

I became aware of an empty self—

and have been drawing lines ever since.


Since 1999, with  the series "Works of Linear-Actions, "

I have drawn, cut, and layered lines on paper.

Repetition produces difference.

Forms emerge—like rings, like waves—

while the material remains other.


With each cut, time accumulates.

What appears is not time itself,

but its trace:

a time lag, slowly taking form.


In 2013, in Arizona,

faced with vast nature,

I sensed a gap—

between the nature I felt

and the nature before me.

From then on, nature shifted toward physis,

as a process of generation.


In my hanging works,

cutting disrupts structure.

Gravity introduces distortion.

I cut again, accepting what occurs.

Absence expands,

and form and void remain in relation.


Through making, time layers—

taking provisional form

and opening to others.


Sculpture becomes

an assemblage in continuous becoming.


Cutting into printed matter

is both intervention and collaboration.

Working with existing texts,

I reconstruct relations of meaning

and question where the subject resides.

© 2023  Noriko Ambe and ARS New York

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