Island Series

Works on paper by Akiko Usami.

This series of drawings sees Usami exploring memories and experiences that have shaped her identity, and is based on studies of traditional Japanese patterns.

These meticulous works on paper with their repetitive stylised natural forms are laboriously built up to create an intricate web of pattern.

The time and intensity which one imagines goes into producing each drawing verges on the obsessive.

However for both artist and viewer alike there is a sense of meditation as one becomes self- absorbed in the repeated process.

For the artist, this emphasis on process is as important as the resulting visual experience.

Usami's drawings require time to explore and it is on closer inspection slight differences can be seen; with the recognition of these differences Usami's drawings seem less about being deliberately constructed, and more like a garden erupting into bloom.

This organic structure evolves through the artist's seemingly mechanical act of repeated mark making.

Each individual pattern, though similar, deviates slightly from the one before.

These individual structures continually build up, changing, mutating - small things quietly evolving.