KEIKO NARAHASHI
I had a studio visit on May 9 th with Keiko Narahashi, whose work was part of my exhibition at The Educational Alliance Gallery in 2004, an exploration of cubes and grids titled SQUARED. I was curious as to what she’d been up to, and contacted her on her web site. It was great to see her and catch up. She had a little bit of everything from her creative history on view, so I was able to consider her growth. There had been a lot of it. I can’t speak to all the growth, but can give you a snapshot of a few of the moves she has made. Narahashi is still a sculptor, though she has moved through more traditional modes of expression like ceramics, from the painted canvas constructions I saw before. Those were experimental and were a movement away from painting. There is still a strong color element in her work but it operates in concert with a very fragile quality of form, to the degree that it seems most ephemeral. Only in her most recent work is the painterliness returning.
