Installations from tracing paper by Yuko Takada Keller

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Of course, everyone knows what tracing paper is and why it is needed. And in the same way, everyone knows that this paper is used as an auxiliary material: with its help it is easy to copy a drawing, pattern, drawing, but in itself it is not of particular interest. That was until the Japanese woman Yuko Takada Keller got down to business, creating installations from ordinary tracing paper - light, airy, stunning.

At the beginning of her creative career, Yuko preferred the creation of woven tapestries, but one day, after returning from a trip to Northern Europe, she decided to work with paper. For her first works, Keller used Japanese "washi" paper, but this material could not convey the feeling of transparency that the author so needed. After a series of experiments, Yuko Takada picked up tracing paper - and realized that she could not find better material. For each of his works, the author paints the paper, then tears or cuts it into tiny particles and string them on threads. According to Keller, "while each piece of paper has its own rhythm and direction, when put together, these elements become more than just pieces of tracing paper."

Let's touch on the philosophical part of Keller's paper installations. As the author notes, she was initially attracted by the transparency of the tracing paper. However, a little later, Yuko realized that this material is also opaque. Something like a story with half a glass of water: for some, the container is half full, for others it is half empty. Thus, in the eyes of the author, the tracing paper has turned into a kind of membrane between transparent and opaque. Yuko Takada Keller calls it a “life membrane” and says about it the following: “Calca is like a life membrane. The life membrane is in the middle between dream and reality, between consciousness and behavior. The life membrane appears where new life is born and is part of human existence."

Yuko Takada Keller was born in 1958 in Osaka (Japan). In 1997, the author moved to Denmark, where she still lives. You can see more of Keller's work on her website.