Emerge – bloom red (2025)

​

This work employs the technique of wax-resist dyeing (roketsuzome) to explore processes of emergence and blooming, centered on the color red.

​

The blurring and fluid transitions inherent to this technique arise partly beyond the artist’s control, shaped through the interaction of wax, dye, and water. These processes generate surfaces where chance and intention intersect, producing organic and unpredictable forms. In this work, the traces formed by the movement and diffusion of water seem to embody the dynamics of natural forces themselves.

​

Within these formations, subtle presences resembling small living creatures appear, gently unsettling the viewer’s perception. These indeterminate shapes do not resolve into fixed images, but are completed through the act of looking, opening a field of pareidolic perception.

​

This sensibility also connects to Umeda’s large-scale work Forest of Pareidolia, in which the imagery of a forest merges with an underwater world, dissolving the boundaries between reality and imagination to form an inner landscape. Emerge – bloom red can be understood as a condensed fragment of this broader world, focusing on the relationship between perception and processes of becoming.

​

The word “emerge” suggests a rising presence from within, while “bloom” evokes expansion and the unfolding of life. The color red introduces intensity—life, emotion, vitality—while simultaneously unfolding as a sequence of subtle and fluid transformations.

​

Through her engagement with materials and processes, Ayaka Umeda seeks to capture moments of transformation that are often imperceptible. In this work, the flows and seepages produced by natural forces function not merely as visual phenomena, but as a medium connecting imagination with inner perception.

​

Rather than presenting fixed imagery, the work exists in a state of continual fluctuation between perception and memory, inviting the viewer to quietly participate in its process of becoming.