Erosion presents a poetic conversation between artist Noriko Nakamura and the material central to her work - limestone. Noriko’s stone carving sculptures and installations are influenced by Japanese beliefs and traditions in animism and ritualistic practices, whereby the boundary between the physical and spiritual is not absolute, but rather, can be transgressed to create new forces within an object.
Working in close collaboration with filmmaker Asuka Sylvie, this exhibition merges many of the concerns active in Noriko’s work to date. Two mirrored video projections display a continuum of both natural and mechanical transformations of limestone. The remnants of an active quarry, chiselled rock faces, piles of detritus and stacks of stones created by mechanical forces are reflected against waves scouring and breaking down ocean rocks, intertwined with images of sinkholes located in Ereng Balam (Mount Gambier). These videos act as a language for Noriko’s sculptural and installation work. She pulls details of physical forces from each landscape - natural drivers as well as mechanical destruction and rebuilding - to imbue a new reading of her process and map the various threads of place, material and spirit within her work. The fluid camera movement adopted by Asuka presents an abstract narrative that seeks to show how materials change and transgress boundaries that have been established by systems of categorisation - mechanical, natural, human-made, organic.
Three large boulders, placed in their natural state, form an anchor in the center of the exhibition space, creating a path between documented environment and literal, physical form. The staging of the work in throughout Erosion reflects Noriko’s exploration of how the manipulation of materials can instil significance upon an object; how it can change or challenge its substance and inform a physical presence, or reflect a new life-force through art. The videos translate each physical interaction into an echo of the natural and mechanical interactions between material and environment. Within the gallery space the viewer bears witness to the act of erosion through the negotiation between artist and her material.
