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.