1997

Untitled

Japanese, born 1959

Over the years, Yanagi has employed the ant as an instrument of ever-changing symbolic potential, using its behavior to suggest a wide range of ideas, from military aggression to repressive subjugation. In creating this print, part of a portfolio, the artist followed the path of an ant with an etching needle, incising its meandering trail in the varnished surface of five copper plates. The delicate tracery of the ant’s trail becomes denser at the edges, as the ant tries to escape its confinement.