Nobuhito Nishigawara

Qualia, the body of work shown here, engages with the Japanese concept of MA (間), the pause, the space between, inviting quiet reflection through intentional ambiguity. Drawing on natural forms such as droplets and branches, the work seeks a balance between refinement and spontaneity, existing delicately at the threshold of beauty.

Nishigawara’s work explores movement, transformation, and the beauty of impermanence. Inspired by Agnes Martin, who wrote that beauty is an inner awareness and a mystery of the mind rather than something merely seen, he tunes into the subtle, barely perceptible pulses that often go unnoticed. Rather than depicting nature literally, he uses fluid glazes, fragile elements, and weathered surfaces to capture raw energy and rhythm, drawing on metaphors like water and the brief flash of a firework.

He describes the work as a diary of the subconscious, an evolving record of intuitive, unspoken feelings that emerge through the act of making. He does not consider himself a narrative sculptor. The work is not about illustrating an idea, but about the materiality of sculpture itself.

Finger-pressed repetitive lines and layered glaze passages function like a mantra, repetition as visual rhythm. The sculptures become maps of internal experience, navigating states of being like innocence, joy, happiness, and the sublime.

His practice gives form to the full spectrum of human emotion, from joy and wonder to grief and resilience, with a wabi-sabi sensibility in which texture, imperfection, and marks of time are tangible evidence of having lived. The work sits in the delicate space between presence and absence, growth and decay, accepting life’s inevitable fade rather than freezing a moment in pristine perfection.

As an inherently ambiguous concept, Qualia mirrors the artist’s own multifaceted identity, neither fully Japanese nor fully American. It is within this duality that he defines himself: MA between inner self and outer self.