De-construction and re-construction could always lie in the center of my works. I have been considering what to de-construct and re-construct.

Since the very beginning of my artistic career, I have been interested in the surface of objects. For a painting student, to think about how to make a good composition or a beautiful surface is an expected task, but it was not mine. My essential interest has been what makes up the surface of the object; through which processes was the surface produced; how could I peel off the surface; what things could I see behind the surface; And how could I embody these things behind the surface into my work. Although we are completely surrounded by surfaces, we cannot physically enter things in even one millimeter under the surface. Every time we peel a surface, a new surface will appear immediately, like an infinite loop. That means, behind the surface is unreachable and always invisible. Then my next question appears, how to perceive these infinite surfaces, or how to loosen the surfaces that seem to be firmly interwoven?

“Time” could also be one of the things existing a little behind these firm surfaces. Time itself is normally invisible although almost all things around us have their own time, i.e., their history and story. Their actual outlook may be different from what they used to be before or while they were produced. Looking back my past art works, I have always tried to capture those invisible things on my works realistically. Thanks to their primal structure, fabrics and embroideries allow me to unravel textiles into hundreds of threads. In other words, they could figuratively reverse time while making the invisible time visible, and as an effect of this, loosen the surface.

I am still asking myself what to unravel and what to reweave in our time.

Aiko Tezuka

Berlin, October 25, 2017

*This statement is written for the exhibition “re:construction” at PLADS artspace, Aarhus, Denmark, from 29 October – 25 November 2017