"Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways." So wrote Oscar Wilde in "The Critic as Artist." There are myriad theories on why and how different wavelengths in the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum affect us in the ways they do -- some are scientific, others more fanciful. For her part, Ruriko Murayama prefers to focus on what she calls the "experience of color."
The two large, quiltlike works in the 34-year-old Akita-based artist's new show at Viewing Room Yotsuya are a riot of color. Thousands of pieces of silk, ranging in size from that of a thumbnail to little larger than a subway ticket, were individually dyed, then painstakingly stitched together to create the room-filling pieces that hang from the gallery ceiling.
"The aim," says the artist, "is to express the fact that although we often tend to recognize and theorize through item and form, an absolute visual of color never exists."