For example: the way a drop of milk creates an abundance of expressive designs every time it falls into a cup of coffee—or the way a tree branch, stretching in a specific direction, draws particular shapes as it grows.

Every event conforms to a severe cause and effect and consists, by necessity, of aspects unique to itself. However, what are the generative factors that exist between “what happened” and “what did not happen,” and how deep do they go? Things happen only once in this world; from it things that were never supposed to happen and things that almost happened fall away at every instant. On the other hand, countless ramifications accumulate as a result of each unique occurrence, with the ratio growing more disproportionate every moment. In this way the appearance of our only world is formed. That is to say, the reality of this world is a singular state of all the possibilities that might have occurred at every moment, even right at this moment, excluded—at the same time that it is the result of all the possibilities that happened not to be excluded.

“GUTIC” is a provisional name adopted to describe a certain form which seems to exist yet does not exist. As the world and we that inhabit it came to be before the advent of formal awareness, a shape, called into being by a line, manifests a primordial reality of its own. I draw a line and remove it on supporting media many times. After erasing the line, I draw again. I redo it and continue. Over the course of this process, I pursue “what is supposed to be” as a fact—not as a beautiful thing, not as a good-looking shape, not even as something that is beyond my imagination. A form begins to organically cohere, evoking something that belongs to a world adjacent to but not identical to our own. During the process of drawing and erasing, every time that this form begins to appear and assert its distorted existence, I cannot stop myself from discovering its core reality—always feeling awkward in the attempt, as if I am on the trail of an inevitable absurdity.

English translation: Takako Tanabe/ David Tompkins