The Wellesley College website is currently in transition. This temporary site is for current Wellesley College community members. If you're a prospective student or employee, please go to our new site at www.wellesley.edu.

Mika Taga:

BE/LONGING
 
Mika Taga
Studio Art major
 
My work explores sensations of otherness, hybridity, queerness, void, and dimensional darkness. I am captivated by the transformative potential of in-betweens and seek to access and reveal the forms born from those spaces. Working predominantly in sculpture, I work with salvaged wood from the Wellesley College landscape, plaster, wire, and burlap, guided by John Cage-inspired chance operations and nonintention in the act of carving and shaping form. I listen to the material and respond to it. The nonintention allows one to be in conversation with the material itself. The conversation comes to life as the form takes shape, articulating the unseen space, and tracing the unconscious mind.
 
Through the coalescence of Zen meditation practice, training in silence and stillness, and learning to open to the conversation that arises between myself and the material as the form takes shape, I attempt to understand and bridge essense with existence in an ontological exploration of forms tracing the unconscious mind. In the next phase of my practice, I hope the forms I make, in conversation and collaboration with other makers, will act as portals of connection, collective healing, and space-making for that which does not yet have a place in current systems.
 
~.~
 
Silent Echo and Buddha Bowl Stool
both oak wood
both 2021
 
Deep Cuts, Abdomen Sensation, Look Over Your Shoulder, and Kannon's Twisted Compassion
all pine wood
all 2021
 
all located in the Jewett Gallery

 

low view of an arrangement of stained and carved wood forms

 

close-up on a piece of wood with gouges carved into the bark to make a light pattern   close-up on a stained and carved piece of wood with a large split in the center of the form

 

close-up of the top of a stained and carved wood sculpture. It looks vaguely like the handle of a walking cane   image of a stained and carved wood form sitting on top of a separate stained and carved wood stool

 

arrangement of blackened and carved wood forms, some on a low pedestal, some directly on the floor

 

~.~

Shadow Inheritance
welded Sawzall blades, wire, yarn
2022
Jewett Gallery
 
three strings of saw blades bent and welded together and tied with yarn, creating interesting shadows on the wall
 
three hanging arrangements of welded saw blades and yarn
 
~.~
 
Perspectives of Indra's Net
plaster, wire, burlap, dyed burlap, sewing thread
2022
PNW 2nd floor lobby
 
a hanging burlap sculpture installed above a white plaster sculpture on the ground in front of windows
 
Primordial Womb
scrap plywood, black acrylic paint, wire
2022
PNW 2nd floor lobby
 
three low sculptures on the floor made of interlocking pieces of black wood; the far right sculpture has chicken wire over it
 
 

This body of work is comprised of forms I imagine emerge from in-between, unseen, interstitial crevices. It is an attempt to shape emptiness and trace the unconscious mind. The wooden forms were carved using a Sawzall, a reciprocating saw typically used for demolition and remodeling. The process of carving was guided by John Cage inspired chance operations and intuition. The other sculptural forms arose out of a fascination with scrap and found materials-- transforming the discarded/overlooked into the entirely unexpected. I worked with chicken wire, burlap, sewing thread, yarn, plaster, and welded saw blades to shape the forms imagined to be born from the empty space between.

 
close-up on part of a complex hanging burlap sculpture
 
looking down at a wood sculpture made of interlocking black pieces, casting strong shadows on the floor
 
a white plaster sculpture sitting on the floor at a corner of windows
 
hanging and floor sculptures in a space with tall windows looking out onto trees
 
~.~
 

 

Current

link

Past

link

Upcoming

link