ETSUKO ICHIKAWA
GLASS PYROGRAPH SERIES & THE SHORT FILM 2100°/451°
http://www.etsukoichikawa.com/
Etsuko Ichikawa is a Tokyo-born, Seattle-based artist who creates mesmerizing abstract “paintings” through the art of pyrography. Specifically, Ichikawa removes fiery, molten glass from a kiln as it glows at 2100° F, and then manipulates it over thick paper, leaving scorch marks and burns. The process is something akin to photography, in which light is recorded on film, capturing and eternalizing the immediacy of a moment.
We would encourage you to watch the gorgeous video above, directed by Alistair Banks Griffin as it illustrates Ichikawa’s process. “Ichikawa stands purposefully above the paper, making sweeping, expressive gestures with molten glass on the paper’s surface,” describes Winston Wachter, who represents the artist. “Her performative technique requires that she work quickly and deliberately to avoid the paper catching fire.”
“My working media varies broadly, from socially engaged art, performance, and film, to installation, sculpture, and drawing. What ties all my work together are the aesthetics that were once described as “visuals that evoke a haunting mix of fear and poetry”— drawing on paper with molten glass using fire as my paint brush, filming dripping water from the top of a 500-feet high nuclear cooling tower, recording my echoing voice asking “What is beautiful to you?” into the absolute darkness of a 1000-ft long tunnel, or sculpting replicas of Japanese ancient artifacts in radioactive uranium glass.
All of these actions and creations are inspired by my questions about what is important to us in our times, and to the societies to which each of us belongs. The Fukushima nuclear disaster that occurred in my home country of Japan in 2011 triggered a turning point in my art practice, as I started seeking a way to use art as a social and civic instrument.”
