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ARTIST ARCHIVE
Akiko Kotani
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Themes: abstract Review: Akiko Kotani's fiber art, which has been influenced by Guatemalan, Mbuti and Japanese art and reflects a synthesis of Eastern and Western traditions, is base on a skillful combination of drawing, stitching and plain weaving. Whereas she has striven to pare down her images to the barest essentials, her work has evolved to a larger scale with multiple translucent fabric layers which create a depth and a reverberation as the images recede in space. Critics have acclaimed her work as "Her minimally colored, stitched drawings on plainly woven wool seem like simple landscapes you can wrap yourself in and feel like you're home. They capture the spirit of what moves her about Mbuti bark scratchings --- a direct perception of nature translated into spontaneous abstractions."(Alice Winn, Pittsburgh City Paper), "Kotani's red yarn abstractions play with visual expectations and push art and craft boundaries, as well as those that separate women's home expressions form those of early male abstract expressions."(Mary Thomas, PG(post-gazette) News) "the paradox of Akiko Kotani's "New Works in Silk and Wool" --- is that they seem at the same time impulsive and premeditated. The sprawling lines of her silk drawings on sheer, layered fabric look whimsical, as if they flowed from the artist's hand in a single moment of inspiration. But a closer look at the individual textures of the threads reveals that the pieces must have been painstakingly stitched." (Eve Modzelewski, Pittsburgh Post Gazette) Available research materials of the artist in the AAAC Archives are 58 slides, 4 diskettes, invitation cards, exhibition brochures, 3 catalogs of group exhibitions where the artist's works were included and reviews. Reviewed by Young Park | |||||||||
