rial that almost came before the form. We all engage in a dialogue with the materials we use; that is true for Noll as well as Nakashima. One uses exotic woods, the other uses massive pieces, but in each case there is a struggle between the material and the artist. They find what is inherent in the material. And all of us approach our materials intuitively first, and only then begin exploring. With Nakashima there is this tension between the raw wood and what he does to it - the balance between the two is the most important aspect of his work. It’s amusing to me that some people call it the work of a lumberjack when in reality it’s incredibly refined, everything but the work of a lumberjack. There is something shared between the material and him. He didn’t try to create a refined work - he is refined and it shows in his work.
be considered a form of luxury, since you only use a very small part of your material. The passage from drawing to cutout is interesting because there is no emptiness in the two-dimensional drawing. Only when cutting the holes do the lines become legible as positive spaces. I remember the teacher for life drawing at architecture school explaining to us that we shouldn’t try to draw the contours of the body but the negative spaces between the legs or the arms when the hands rest on the hip, for example. You always have to negotiate the connection with the negative space in order to succeed. The same with sculpture: you look for the vibration that inevitably exists between positive and negative. The line can be tense but you need the negative to be as present as the positive. When you take the screens, it is striking to discover the balance by just focusing on the negative spaces. I wanted
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Allowing for so much negative space in your work could almost