Yuken Teruya

Yuken Teruya, 2006, Untitled, 10 paper bags, variable dimensions

Yuken Teruya is adept at transforming objects using very modest, intimately-scaled gestures. In Notice Forest, the artist subtly draws our attention to the effects of consumerism and globalism -- alluding to the depletion of fragile natural resources, the disappearance of cultural traditions and identities, and the distribution of wealth in the new world order. Working with discarded paper bags from takeout joints such as McDonald's and Krispy Kreme, commercial gift bags and post office packages, Teruya creates delicately rendered shadowboxes in which the sculptural form cut out from the container is shaped by the container itself. Using photography as the starting point, Teruya photographs trees he encounters in his daily life and then painstakingly recreates the form of the individual trees as paper cutouts that are suspended inside the bags. Light filters down through the holes to illuminate the tiny tree within each bag's miniature interior landscape in what the Teruya describes as his attempt to return a spent consumer product back to the forest.

Yuken Teruya, 2006, Untitled, 10 paper bags, variable dimensions

2005, Happy Meal x 2, cut paper bags, 3.5 x 6 x 10.5” ea

2005, Happy Meal x 2, cut paper bags, 3.5 x 6 x 10.5” ea

2005, Notice Forest, 21 paper rolls, steel, and magnets, dimensions variable