Yasuko Toyoshima Web Site | WORKS / 鉛筆

PENCIL (1996-1999)

The most basic tool of expression for me is the pencil. By using a pencil to write or draw, the lead is transferred from the material with which the pencil is made and transformed into a word or a picture. Its material existence is thus extended. The same could be said of pencil shavings: the pencil has not so much been reduced as expanded in its transfigured form. In this particular piece, I changed the shape of the pencil by carving a portion of its midpoint so as to expose the lead inside. By exposing the boundary between the interior and the exterior, the essence and means of transformation for the pencil—its lead—is revealed. The lead is the material will of the pencil to communicate so as to expand. This is representative of our will for communication and expression—a means for our own self-expansion and transformation.