Sachiko Akiyama: Through Lines
On view through June 12, 2022
Brattleboro Museum & Art Center
Brattleboro, Vermont
www.Brattleboromuseum.org
Polychrome wooden statues and wall reliefs have been made in cultures around the world for millennia. Sachiko Akiyama breathes new life into this tradition.
Each sculpture possesses a self-contained, contemplative quality. That is not to say, however, that the sculptures lack vitality. Far from it. Both in their narrative content and in their making, each piece pulses with energy. Akiyama’s sculptural mark making includes furled edging, shallow articulations of depth, and an interplay between positive and negative space. Each gesture reveals the hand of the artist and her ability to create work that is at once boldly graphic and surprisingly delicate.
“Gathering” is a portrait of connection. Two figures in contemporary dress sit quietly, each in his and her own chair, united by a long skein of red cord dotted with knots, spilling from each lap into a pool on the floor. What is the relationship between the figures? What is the symbolism of the red cord? What do the knots represent? The sculpture is magical in its juxtaposition of stasis and movement, time and timelessness, the physical and the spiritual.
[Image: Sachiko Akiyama, “Gathering” (2019), wood, paint, string, variable dimensions, from “Through Lines.” Photo Credit: Stewart Clements]
