The Surface is The Between

The Surface is the Between was created as an offset print publication in a series with artists Cynthia Carlson and Sally Alatalo. Ida worked with the theme of the “Surface is the Between” for over a decade. Based on childhood experience of watching flowing water, Ida later acknowledged gravity as an elemental condition in his works. Ida sent the two images for this print as ink drawings on mylar, and proofs of the print were approved by him from Japan. During his appearance for an award ceremony and talk with Robert Rauschenberg at the University of Maryland, College Park campus, he visited Pyramid’s Riverdale studio. We were sad he passed on before we could complete a second companion offset print from a drawing he made using his fingerprints.

Ida explained this series in an interview published in the Hara Museum Review in Spring 1987: “The ‘surface’ can be the paper or canvas or whatever. It is the point of contact between me and the ideas I am working on or the materials that I am working with. Or, an easier way to understand this might be to say that there is a space between us when we talk where communication takes place. That space is important to appreciate—but you can’t really see it, it’s just air. You can’t see the wind either, but if you look at the branches of the trees moving, you can see the force of the wind. That space is important to appreciate … Through my work I try to make invisible phenomena visible by showing the point of contact.”—Shoichi Ida

Printer: Brad Freeman

Learn more about the artist:
myjapanesehanga.com/home/artists/ida-shoichi