Yasuaki Onishi's commission for Rice University Gallery, Houston, is a perplexing installation constructed from simple polythene and synthetic materials orchestrated to construe grand natural formations in the likeness of mountains and clouds. 'Onishi views this process of “reversing” sculpture to be a meditation on the nature of the negative space, or void, left behind.'

I am interested in this polarity between representation and nothingness, that such practices as Onishi's deals with. The conflicting theoretical ideals of East and West may be bridged when perceived with an inverted tangent such as this. The work of Onishi is suggestive of natural structures however they are presented with the philosophical backdrop that 'nature' is insignificant yet important at the same time. This Zen or Taoist rhetoric is informative of Onishi's affirmation to a practice concerned with the metaphysical.