Kumi Yamashita – Thread, Light and Shadow
Kumi Yamashita is an installation artist born in Japan. She arrived in the United States as a high-school exchange student and currently she lives in Manhattan and works in a tiny studio in Long Island City. She creates portraits and figures that are simultaneously subtle and magical. She transforms simple materials into portraits; some of her favourite materials are thread, light and shadow, bits of cloth and even impressions from credit cards. She winds thread around brads embedded in a white board; she pinches and pleats square sheets of aluminium so that, when they are hung on the wall and lit from the side, they cast shadows of human profiles. Kumi Yamashita says that she is drawn to things that do not take up space, adding that she is envious of musicians “who can fill up a room with beautiful notes and yet leave nothing behind.”
