Dream Suspended, 2006
porcelain soccer balls, neon wire, AC driver and wood
108 x 88 x 56 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Howard House, Seattle

Greencastle, IN, January 2007 — The Logic of Place: Yuki Nakamura, an exhibition featuring recent work by Seattle-based artist Yuki Nakamura, will be on view at the Richard E. Peeler Art Center at DePauw University from January 31 through March 4, 2007.

Raised on the southern Japanese island of Shikoku – where a very strong sense of regional identity was instilled by the island’s geography and its isolated relationship to the rest of Japan – Yuki Nakamura creates sculptural installations – with ceramics as her primary medium – that emphasize the relationship between subject, object and place. One of the recurring themes in Nakamura’s work is the concept of how islands represent boundaries. For the artist, the boundary between land and water is anintensely powerful metaphor for articulating cultural identity. As the artist states: “I am interested in maps, especially islands: there exists a very clear boundarybetween land and water. This strict separation is an intensely powerful metaphor for articulating identity and cultural inclusiveness. I question the tenuous relationship between two worlds: the internal world of one’s self, and the external world of cultural façade.”

The internalized sense of separation resulting from the geographic isolation of her past is evident in her work, where Nakamura relates to the world and its surroundings as parts of a spatial puzzle.

Yuki Nakamura received her BFA from Joshibi University of Art and Design in Tokyo in 1994, and her MFA from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1997. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Pratt Fine Art Center in Seattle, and has also carried out residencies in Johnson, Vermont, Novara, Italy and La Napoule, France. Her work has been widely exhibited at a wide range of venues in the United States, Europe, Asia and Canada.

Nakamura is also a member of SOIL, a notable artist-run gallery in Seattle, Washington, a space known as a site for curatorial and artistic collaboration and experimentation.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Opening reception with gallery talk by the artist
January 31, 2006
4:00 – 5:30 pm
Richard E. Peeler Art Center

For more information about special events associated with this exhibition, please call the gallery information line at 765.658.4336