If anyone could kind of make Chuck Close look like a regular fingerpainter, it might just be Kumi Yamashita. The Japanese artist, who first made her way to the United States in 1984 as high school exchange student, now resides in New York City, working out of a studio in Long Island City. She has sold pieces at the Kent Gallery of New York for $5,000-$20,000, and higher for commissions. The artist is well connected via social media, with a blog and Facebook page.
A To Z from Light & Shadow by Kumi Yamashita
A hallmark of Yamashita’s work is stunning detail, dimension, and suggestion created from minimalist materials. One example of this is her Light & Shadow series, featuring imagery created from of the shadows cast by masterfully arranged objects when backlit by a single light source.
The jaw dropping series of the artist that is receiving renewed buzz in the art world right now is aptly entitled Constellation, consisting of large, portraits of photographic detail that are constructed entirely of one long piece of black sewing thread wound around thousands of tiny galvanized nails stuck in a whitewashed wooden panel as if stars in the sky.
Cy
Sachi
Erik
Mana
Though the pieces in the series were conceived several years ago, Mana, a privately commissioned portrait, recently became one of 50 finalists selected from a pool of 3,000 for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, held triennially at the Smithsonian Museum’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. As a result, Yamashita’s pieces will be a part of a major display there, available for viewing until February 23, 2014. A must see.
Check out more at KumiYamashita.com.
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