【 物語の住処 — 東條明子 個展 | Dwelling of Stories — Masumi Yamamoto Solo Exhibition】

Akiko Tojo’s wood sculptures are grounded in the Japanese modern and contemporary artistic tradition’s sustained attention to the inner life of materials, transforming this legacy into a highly condensed and restrained sculptural language. For Tojo, wood is not a passive medium awaiting form, but a site that already carries time, memory, and emotion within it.

In her practice, Tojo follows an attitude of working in accordance with the material, responding to the grain, weight, and rhythm inherent in the wood rather than imposing an external form (imposé). Through this mode of coexistence with the material, her works attain a stable and focused presence. At the same time, they evoke an intimacy close to the scale of the hand—suggesting that they are not only meant to be viewed, but also to be preserved, held, and lived with over time.

Animals, children, and dwellings frequently appear in Tojo’s work, yet these figures are not narrative characters nor references to specific stories. Instead, they occupy a state in which narrative remains unfinished but charged with tension and density. Before language intervenes, emotion and weight are already present. Layered bases, stable supporting structures, and indistinct forms beneath sustain the figures, allowing them to be held in place while exerting a quiet, enduring attraction upon the viewer.

Dwelling of Stories explores how stories come to reside within objects. In Tojo’s work, wood becomes the site in which stories find shelter—a dwelling that allows unfinished narratives to be held with stability. Rather than encountering a story that has already been resolved, viewers meet forms that retain the potential for becoming; through proximity and sustained looking, viewing gradually transforms into an accumulation of sensation and memory.