Installation — Fuyuko Matsubara

Pittsburgh Center for the Arts

Fuller Craft Museum

AVA Gallery

Nutting Gallery

In the Earth 2 -whole view-

93" x 168" (237cm x 427cm)

In the fall of 1984, right after I graduated from Cranbrook Academy of Art, I started a large scale pastel drawing, later entitled “In the Earth”. It took nearly 20 years to finish the weaving from the original drawing.

The work consists of 12 panels. Each panel contains an image that is compositionally complete and may be viewed as an independent piece. The image of each panel "bleeds" into or connects to adjacent panels. Any combinations of adjacent panels may be viewed as one image. When the 12 panels are viewed together, they create a single composition entitled "In the Earth". The concept behind these arrangements reflects my view of the elements of the world as they may be dealt with individually or as groupings.

What I am trying to express in the pictorial image of "In the Earth " is "beings" (life forms) and their environment in the realm of the Earth. The image is representational and imaginative in order to express both visible and invisible dimensions. The beings in my imagery are constantly growing in their environment. The beings and the environment are interactive and interchangeable in terms of their forms because they are made of similar components that are like atoms. I refer to these components as "light corpuscles". The characters in my imagery are overlapped and layered in order to express my idea of the Earth as multi dimensional. Both micro and macro cosmic beings are co-residing in my imagery to simulate actual elements that can be found in the Earth.