Natsuki Takauji

 Artist Statement:

My work is deeply influenced by the aspects that originated from my personal experiences in a religiously confused and sexually oppressed environment in Tokyo, Japan, where I was born and raised. For me, art is to liberate from condition and suppression to reveal something that won't be expressed otherwise. 

I choose various mediums and visual approaches depending on the projects. This steel wire wall series is made with welded steel combining with fragile or soft materials like fabric and paper. Creating shapes with welded steel wires is the most flexible and inspiring way to think and draw in space for me. I ride on the flow and visualize each work's final form and feeling as the steel structure starts to shape. Then, my joy is eventually interrupted as I think of other unweldable materials that will be on it because it becomes not quite flexible but requires controls. I must go through the tension between liberation and premeditation, crisis and remedy in my mind. Knowing that the imagination is free, but I can not undo the action, I always learn how to work around apparent regrets or disasters created by my own. That is the result of resiliency. This internal process is what I built over time, and I see myself becoming less and less afraid of failures as if the art-making itself is a practice of resilience for me.