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Earth, sky, moon, sun. It's a veritable environmental science class inside Mu Project, where Shinji Turner-Yamamoto exhibits abstract paintings and wall works, many incorporating ash and several "painted" by raindrops. The works in the artist's "rainbow" series were made, in part, as raindrops fell onto a layer of ash and formed abstract patterns; he then sealed the ash onto clear acetate and suspended the page over colored canvas. The result looks like clouds obscuring a rainbow. In the gallery's rear room, dramatically lit gold- and silver-leafed abstract paintings evoke constellations. Ireland's soggy weather -- experienced firsthand during a residency there -- served as the show's co-author and inspiration.

Jessica Dawson
"Earthy Abstractions," The Washington Post, 14.03.2008

 

 

"Turner-Yamamoto's abstractions look ostensibly outward, as often as not toward the stars. In such works as the triptych "Constellation" or others from a series of "Nebula" paintings, Turner-Yamamoto evokes an infinity of a very different sort, one embodied in the heavens. Yet his work is just as often earthbound, as in "Sleeping Vishnu Tree," inspired by an uprooted oak. Working in media that include milk, henna, rainwater, beeswax, tree resin and animal glue further roots the artist's poetic work in the here and now, his work has both a specificity and universality. In other words, it transcends itself."

Michael O'Sullivan
"Reaching for the Unreachable," The Washington Post, 25.05.2007

 

 

"Shinji Turner-Yamamoto's works seem to evoke a very slow, still evolving cosmogony. The stone sculptures, the landscapes of marble powder, the frescoes are the metamorphoses of a world that continues to be born, bearing within the traces of what was."

"I lavori di Shinji Turner-Yamamoto sembrano evocare una cosmogonia lentissima, ancora in divenire. Le sculture con le pietre trovate, i paesaggi di polvere di marmo, gli affreschi, sono metamorfosi di un mondo che continua a nascere, portandosi dentro le tracce di cio' che e stato."

Rosalba Pajano
"Light Art," Skira Editore, Milan, Italy 2005

 

 

"Observing Turner-Yamamoto's work, one is conscious of the oceans of time and thought involved in his creative process. Viewers are invited to experience this dimension and mood, one that produces a personal place of resonance in his work. The artist's selection of such seductive materials as gold and silver leaf evokes and establishes texture, transparency, reflective layers, all of which urge a flow of suggestive potentiality and emotion. Recourse to the nature does not produce naturalistic effect, but one of abstraction and fluctuation and an almost fluid immateriality of light."

"I tempi lunghi di composizione e percezione dell'autore producono luoghi di risonanza nell'opera e invitano lo spettatore a riprodurne la dimensione e il clima durante la lettura. La qualita' della tessitura di sperficie, la scelta di materiali seducenti come foglia d'argento e d'oro, trasparenze, piani riflettenti, sollecita lo scorrimento, da un supporto all'altro, di potenzialita' suggestive e micro emotive. Il ricorso alla natura non produce effetti naturalistici, ma di astrazione e fluttuazione quasi liquida e immateriale della luce."

Viana Conti
"Arti Visive III - l'occhio in ascolto," Neos Edizioni, Genoa, Italy 2000

 

 

"The fascination which his works evoke intones in a delicate balance that makes perceptible the mysterious quality of the immaterial and indescribable, of that which is between things, and which, even if we do not see it, we know is there. It is evoked by the artist in the simple and natural forms of his found stones, in the small, pure hills of intangible marble powder, or in the mysterious reflection of the natural world in the detached frescoes, in the refined research of materials.
His is an ever precious material, but of a preciousness not loud or garish being, rather, discreet, almost whispered, suggested. In this manner, the slender gold leaf which covers, like a precious skin, the natural indentation of a stone, and that same white powder, pure and incorporeal, which carries the artist back to the idea of the homo faber, of the creator of the dust, of the earth, constructs an entire world. Similar also is the elegance of the elaborated materials of the paintings, obtained by means of a two part process (from interior to exterior and from exterior to interior) arriving in the end at a surface velvety, sensitive and smooth, against which inserts of slender gold leaf become intermittent glimmerings of light."

"La fascinazione che le sue opere esercitano su di noi, risiede anche in questo delicato equilibrio che ci rende percepibile la misteriosa qualita dell'immateriale e dell'indescrivibile, di cio che e tra le cose e che seppure non vediamo sappiamo esserci, evocato dall'artista nelle forme semplici e «naturali» delle sue «pietre trovate», dei candidi coni di impalpabile polvere di marmo, o nel misterioso specchiarsi della natura negli «affreschi staccati», cosi come nella raffinata ricerca dei materiali.
Una materia sempre preziosa, la sua, ma di una preziosita non sgargiante e chiassosa, bensi discreta, come sussurrata, suggerita: cosi la sottile lamina d'oro che riveste - come una preziosa pelle - l'incavo naturale della pietra, e la stessa polvere bianca, pura ed impalpabile, che riporta l'artista all'idea archetipica dell'homo faber, del creatore che dalla polvere, dalla terra, costruisce un mondo. Cosi, ancora, la raffinata ed elaborata materia dei dipinti, ottenuta con un doppio procedimento (dall'interno all'esterno e dall'esterno all'interno) sino a giungere ad una superficie liscia, sensibile, vellutata, su cui gli inserti di sottile foglia d'oro diventano brevi bagliori di luce."

Silvia Evangelisti
"AQUA," Centro Ligure di Studi Orientali, Genoa, Italy 1999

 

 

"The allure of an artistic process that seems to conceal the very nature of painting behind ritual gestures, repeating the essentialness of its labile and layered components, amplifies the faraway echo of a glimmer, an illustrated segment of life."

"L'incanto di un procedimento che sembra nascondere nel gesto rituale la natura stessa della pittura, riportata alla primarieta delle sue componenti labili e stratificate, lascia emergere l'eco lontana di una traccia, di un segmento disegnato di vita."

Roberto Daolio
"Dust and Reflections," Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland 2002

 

 

 

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