Last week I went to see the Chiharu Shiota art exhibition ‘Me, Somewhere Else’ at the Blain Southern gallery in London. The Berlin-based Japanese artist has created a site-specific fibre installation exhibited alongside works of yarn sculpture and some pieces on canvas.

Yarn Installation: Me, Somewhere Else

The exhibition is set over two rooms. On the floor at the centre of the first room is a plaster cast of the artist’s feet. Expanding upwards from the feet is a web of knotted red yarn. The yarn stretches up to the gallery ceiling and spreads across it, with red netted undulations swooping down to below head height.

Shiota has long used the technique of ‘drawing in space’ with yarn, but here she has used the medium in a new way. Usually, the artist creates networks of yarn by passing a ball of thread back and forth through the openings in a triangular motion. Here, Shiota has knotted the yarn by hand to create a net-like covering.

The artwork has an immediate visual impact. The light from the large windows opposite the installation filter through the knotted yarn to create dappled spots of light around the gallery.

As the title of the exhibition suggests ‘Me, Somewhere Else’ addresses the idea of consciousness as separate from the body.

‘I feel that my body is connected to the universe but is my consciousness as well? When my feet touch the earth, I feel connected to the world, to the universe that is spread like a net of human connections, but if I don’t feel my body anymore where do I go? Where do I go when my body is gone? When my feet do not touch the ground anymore.’

Thread on Canvas: Skin

Opposite the entrance to the second room of the exhibition is another thread piece but this time on canvas. Red geometric patterns of thread spread across three white canvases, increasing in density towards the bottom. Shiota does not simply layer the threads over one another in a typical stitching motion but appears to tangle them up together as she stitches, creating masses of twisted yarn.

Yarn Sculpture: State of Being (Dress)

The most visually striking work in this second room is ‘State of Being (Dress)’. The sculpture consists of a large rectangular frame teeming with a web of entangled black thread. Suspended at the centre of this threaded web is a brilliant white gown that seems to glow from within the mass of string. The light from the gallery window creates an effect similar to the dappled light in the first room of the exhibition. This accentuates the contrast between the black yarn and white fabric, giving the piece an otherworldly glow.

Shiota often works with found objects that have had a previous life. Dresses are a recurring motif, suggesting a past presence, a current emptiness. Shoes and suitcases are also recurrent objects in her work, which again suggest something left behind.

Smaller Yarn Sculpture: State of Being (Travel Guide) and (Anatomy)

Two smaller yarn sculptures opposite entitled ‘State of Being (Travel Guide)’ contain travel books and pages torn from them. The yarn used in these sculptured is white, making them appear less foreboding than the other works on display.

The smallest of the sculptures that follow this object-suspended-in-yarn format is ‘State of Being (Anatomy)’, a book encased in a red yarn web. Unlike the other book pieces in the exhibition, this frame contains one single, intact anatomy book.

The artist displays the sculpture at the end of the partition wall that separates the two exhibition rooms. It’s partially hidden and could easily be missed. Due to this odd positioning, the piece can only be comfortably viewed by one person at a time. This creates an intimate viewing experience, emphasised by the smaller size of the sculpture.

Shiota infuses her work with symbolism associated with the body, this piece in particular. Suspended inside the sculpture is an anatomy book with a human figure on the cover. Yarn ‘veins’ the colour of blood encase the book like an organ enclosed within the body. The artist chooses to display the piece on a plinth at chest height; its size and position mirroring the body of the viewer standing opposite.

Red, Black and White Yarn, Colour Symbolism In Shiota’s Fibre Art

The different coloured yarns have come to hold their own symbolism in Shiota’s work.

Red yarn alludes to the body but also to memory, human relationships, and our connectedness to one another. In Japanese culture a red thread represents life; to follow a red string is to follow the path of your life, your destiny.

Black thread speaks of the night, of infinity and the universe. It addresses universal questions about life and death. Shiota used black thread in previous works ‘During Sleep’ And ‘In Between’ (below), which are some of her darkest works. In ‘During Sleep’ a mass of black thread ensnares a room full of women in hospital beds, Shiota among them. Shiota created this work at a time of reflection about her own mortality after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2005.

Shiota’s white thread sculptures create the opposite impression to those in black thread. while still suspending objects in space, the web of yarn seems to be protecting them, wrapping them up in cocoon-like structures, suspending them in time.

The exhibition ‘Me, Somewhere Else’ at Blain Southern gallery ended on 19^th January. If you didn’t have the chance to catch the show, Shiota is currently exhibiting in Dubai and has upcoming shows in Germany and Hawaii; visit Shiota’s website for more details.

If you can’t get see any of these works in person, but want to learn more about Chiharu Shiota’s art, I’ve provided a list of books I recommend taking a look at. These are affiliate links, meaning a percentage of the sale goes to The Fiber Studio if you make a purchase. At no extra cost, you help support the blog which means I can spend more time writing posts like this one!