iimawashi: Contemporary Art from Japan

Merz Gallery

Edinburgh International Festival Fringe 2005

Kumi Yamashita: credit card portrait, conte on silk tissue, 40 x 30cm, 2005

Kumi Yamashita has a rare skill in revealing to us what may actually not be there. By combining form and light her work casts shadows on walls and floors, showing hidden figures in the seemingly random forms she works with. Her work is also concerned with identity and what it is that makes us who we are. Her interest in the human form has led her to create a series of portraits made from rubbings taken from each portrait sitters' credit card. Both these works and the shadow works are intended to highlight our fragile existence, easily dissolved if and when conditions change.