Artist Nishiki Sugawara-Beda installs the Kotodama Converse, a light weight paper and script sculptural installation, with accompanying small sumi paintings on wood. The installation provides a blank canvas that serves as an invitation for the viewer to complete the work, bringing their own emotional state, words, and phrases both physically and metaphorically. The act of viewing becomes the act of participation. Nishiki Sugawara-Beda is a Japanese-American visual artist based in painting and installation. She draws upon her Japanese heritage to explore themes related to culture, language, and spirituality rooted in Zen Buddhism. Connecting across space and time, she experiments in ancient Japanese materials and techniques including Sumi ink, Kakejiku landscapes, and rice paper, to merge them with abstract and expressive forms familiar to the modern Western aesthetic.
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