Vinyl Drawings

Once my mother showed me a bound-book of our family tree that had been handed down over fifteen generations from the year 1575. In it I saw each male sibling’s name recorded in full. But to my disappointment each female sibling was simply recorded as “woman” as if each was insignificant. Remembering this, I decided to create a drawing, reversing the male-female role of this family tree and titling it “Eulogy to Nameless Women Ancestors.” Another drawing, “Night Wait,” depicts a child peeking at her mother who waits for her husband’s return from late night business entertainment. These are two entries in this series of drawings and sculptures. The series depicts my personal experiences as a child and as a young woman growing up in the male-dominant society of Japan. I drew gender and political issues in a critical or satirical way. My work is life scale and I intended the drawings to be cartoon-like.

When I initiated this series I was working with bedsprings and vinyl sheets, so it seemed a good idea to place new drawings on large vinyl sheets and stretch them over bedsprings. To clarify the confusing bedspring images in the background, I drew them using thick black lines. I used these bed spring drawings as prefabricated panels and constructed multi-paneled mazes or house-like structures with semi-transparent interior spaces. Also I experimented using a light box behind the transparent drawings. From some of these drawings came sculptures that filled other dimensions. I also made figures by wrapping and gluing my body with newspapers.