R E I K O  A O Y A G I

Untitled

1996

Oriel, Cardiff, Wales, UK

Mirrored film adhered to windows, light and paint

Untitled, No.10,(review), Cristina Crossingham

“The gallery is entered through a narrow black-curtained passage, the deliberate act of finding it necessarily differentiating the work. One has entered a large, cool, grey space relieved by a yellowish light, falling on the single structural concrete pillar which stands eccentric, piercing the volume. Even the permanent steel floor is subsumed by the greyness of the walls and ceiling. the entire space is appropriated by the work, but the forces is the window which almost fills one wall and divides the gallery from the street. The glass has been laminated with a film of reflective translucent grey. The level of interior illumination, from a single source near the window, is balanced with that of the day.

Light is the operative element, holding the work static at midday and developing its own particular twilight of continuous change during the afternoon and evening. As the street darkens and reflections in the window solidify and become defined, you witness your own presence in the space. Simultaneously, the reflection of the pillar intensifies beyond the window until people passing on the pavement appear to walk through it. As the surfaces within alter, the grey around the window becomes so deep as to look softly absorbent: other walls lose precise location, and one’s position in the space can no longer be verified by the usual perceptual norms. The gallery floor, reflected beyond the window, appears to leave one’s feet without support. In the street outside people pass, maybe quickly glancing at their image in the mirrored window, unaware that they have become part of the work.”