Koshikata-Yukusue

The phrase koshikata-yukusue pairs koshikata (the past, what has gone by) with yukusue (what is to come, the road ahead), a classical formulation that addresses a single subject through both temporal directions at once. As a 2008 single-plate viscosity intaglio, the print would have carried this temporal doubling through purely chromatic and graphic means: aquatint fields and etched lines occupying one plate, inked with stiff and loose viscosities so that adjacent areas accept different rolls and the resulting image holds two color states simultaneously in one pull. Ogawa's small-to-medium format etchings of this period treat such evocative Japanese phrases as compositional armatures rather than illustrative captions, the title naming a structure of feeling that the surface then inhabits. Made during the same year as Matataku, the print sits within a tightly worked stretch of her studio output in which interior memory and external observation are pulled, in her own image, like threads of different fiber into a single woven surface.