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今から2000年以上も前に発明されて以来、私たちの生活のあらゆる場面に浸透した必要不可欠な素材、「紙」。情報の記録や意思伝達をはじめ、ものを包む、液体を拭う、光をとおす・・・など、その機能と役割は枚挙にいとまがありません。「紙」の幅広い活躍は、しなやかで応用しやすい性質や特長によるものですが、そこには人間が与えた何らかの操作や社会の中での機能が伴っています。「紙」になるまでも「紙」となってからも、人とのかかわりなしには存在しない素材なのです。

本展ではそのような「紙」「紙製品」に注目し、独自の表現へと昇華させた現代アーティストをご紹介します。彼らの作品は「紙の上に」ではなく、「紙とともに」アイデアを視覚化したものと言えます。誰にとっても馴染みのある「紙」をとおして、本展のアーティストたちが投げかける問いは、私たちを取り巻く世界や価値観を様々な角度から照らし出してくれることでしょう。

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　半澤友美は「紙」がひとつの造形物であることに目を向け、そこに制作の起点を置いています。その大きな特徴は、「作品」と「紙」が地続きになっていること。つまり、表現行為と「紙を作ること」が一致している点にあります。半澤は、繊維の絡まりによって成り立っている紙の構造、土地の環境や自然条件によって異なる生成方法、記録を目的に発展してきた素材であることなどを踏まえ、そこに「アイデンティティ」や「自己」の考察を重ね合わせた作品を制作しています。
　半澤は、紙工房での長期研修でアメリカに滞在していた際、日本では見かけない太いスポイトと出会いました。それはローストチキンを作る際に、鶏肉に肉汁やソースをかけるための調理用具。半澤はこの道具にヒントを得て、水に溶いたパルプを一滴ずつ垂らすことを思い付きます。《Self》《Traces》は、スポイトからドロップされた紙料の「粒」が重なり合い、絡まりあうことでできている作品です。スポイトから垂らされる紙料の一滴を、作家は、経過した時間の中にある出来事、経験、人間関係の断片として読み替えます。時間は単線的にとらえられがちですが、1人の人間が体験した時間は、その「自己」を形成する上で複雑に絡みあって影響しているはずです。また今回半澤は、樹皮紙（じゅひし）を取り上げた新作《Trails of intersecting》も発表します。樹皮をたたいて薄くの延ばすことでシート状の「紙」にしていく樹皮紙は、「漉く」とは異なる「紙」です。半澤は、紐状の細長い楮（こうぞ）を斜めにクロスさせ、線をたどっていくようにたたきます。構造とプロセスをたどり、成り立ちについて問うことが、半澤の作品（かみ）なのです。

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Since its invention more than 2,000 years ago, paper has been an indispensable material that has permeated every aspect of our lives. Its functions and roles are innumerable, from recording information and communicating with others to wrapping things, wiping liquids, and transmitting light. The wide range of uses for paper is due to its flexible and easy-to-apply properties and characteristics, but it is also accompanied by some kind of manipulation or function in society that humans have given it. Paper is a material that would not exist without human involvement, both before and after it becomes paper.

This exhibition focuses on such "paper" and "paper products" and introduces contemporary artists who have sublimated them into their own unique expressions. Their works can be said to visualize ideas not "on paper" but "with paper. The questions posed by the artists in this exhibition through "paper," which is familiar to everyone, will illuminate the world around us and our sense of values from various angles.

 

Tomomi Hanzawa's work is based on the idea that paper is a form of art. A major characteristic of her work is that the "work" and the "paper" are connected to each other. In other words, the act of expression and the act of making paper are one and the same. She creates works based on the structure of paper, which is made up of a tangle of fibers, the different methods of production depending on the local environment and natural conditions, and the fact that it is a material that has developed for the purpose of documentation, and overlaps these with considerations of "identity" and "self.

　When she was in the U.S. for a long-term residency at a paper workshop, she encountered a thick dropper that she had never seen before in Japan. It was a cooking tool used to pour gravy and sauce over chicken when making roast chicken. Inspired by this tool, she came up with the idea to pour a drop of pulp dissolved in water. Self" and "Traces" are made up of overlapping and intertwining "grains" of paper material dropped from a dropper. The artist interprets each droplet of paper dripping from the dropper as a fragment of an event, an experience, or a relationship in the passage of time. Time tends to be viewed as a single line, but the time experienced by one person must be intricately intertwined and influence the formation of that person's "self. In this exhibition, she will also present a new work, "Trails of intersecting," which features bark paper. Bark paper, which is made into a sheet by beating the bark and stretching it into a thin layer, is a different type of paper from that of "suki-shi," which is the process of making paper. She taps long, slender, string-like kozo (paper mulberry) strips, crossing them diagonally, as if following a line. Her work (paper) traces the structure and process, and asks questions about its origins.

 

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