Woven Knot: Soshi Matsunobe

Lines by Soshi Matsunobe

Konno Yuki

Let’s start by thinking about the act of drawing a line. To begin with, a line – once drawn – (almost always) creates a beginning and an end at the same time. Drawing a line is usually understood as setting a boundary between one thing and the other. But while being the start of a division, a line also holds the potential to slip. It divides and connects at once. 

The moment a line is drawn, we realise that the surface it cuts through is both flat and, potentially, dimensional. Once space is divided into areas, separable zones appear. If a superficial reading focuses on distinction, a more layered interpretation emerges at the point of contact. That’s where the center of gravity shifts from separation to surface. 

Soshi Matsunobe utilises lines as his central motif. In his solo exhibition <Woven Knot>, the lines he draws are not new – they’ve appeared repeatedly in his earlier works. These lines, often quick and gestural strokes like calligraphy, twist and curve across the surface, creating overlapping layers. But these layers aren’t just visual, they introduce depth. Some lines leave behind gaps, like white spaces that don’t quite intersect. These empty intersections create a sense of front and back within the form, giving it dimensional weight. In Woven Knot (2016 –), each variation builds a different sense of depth.

When we look at traces left by a drawn line, or at the empty space where a line might have been but isn’t, we’re led to ask – Is this line a drawing? Is this drawing a shadow? In the work, the line stays on the surface, yet builds a sense of volume. This is also visible in the large wall piece  <Knot(Wall drawing)>(2021-), where the cut edges of blackened paper are shown front-on. Here too, depth is created as the front and back of the line are reversed. The point of origin and endpoint are the same – both start from the surface of paper, a flat surface, and arrive at the gallery wall, another plane. Of course, with a change in angle. Matsunobe’s drawings constantly move beyond substance and illusion substance and volume. 

In <Knot(Wall drawing)>, a one-dimensional line forms the base of the surface, yet brings a three-dimensional sense of mass. Still, the material remains two-dimensional, installed within a two-dimensional space. The illusion created in the work arises from lines left behind as gaps – empty intersections 

When the work stays “dimensional” yet “flat”, the line holds both image and shadow. Visible and nonvisible lines sit side by side on the same surface. The shadow, here, is not simply a trace of something real. It suggests something else entirely. Something that might be flat or three-dimensional. Matsunobe draws and connects these lines to suggest that shadow, too, is ambiguous. It is usually flat but its source may not be flat, but its source may not be. It is a trace, but what it belongs to is uncertain. The shadow remains with “something”. But never fully defines it. 

In works like <Twisted Rubber Band>(2013-), which presents rubber bands naturally twisted into sculptural or photographic forms, and <My Stones>(2011-), where the artist continuously places cement stores outdoors, repetition plays a key role in Soshi Matsunobe’s practice.

This is also why the earlier reference to calligraphy matters. Calligraphy often involves repeating the same character multiple times, using a model as reference, and refining each iteration into a finished piece. Similarly, the <Knot> and <Knot(Wall drawing)> series are not single, isolated works but sets of drawings. Their multiplicity creates a link between repetition and singularity. 

The lines Matsunobe draws are rarely straight. That, too, is part of the logic. Like the shapes of rubber bands or stones, his lines curve and twist. They suggest not a rigid, untouchable “original”, but something flexible. These forms don’t reinforce the authority of the original; instead, they highlight the fact that the “original” might already be a variation.

A line, the moment it begins, already moves toward its end. But that end always points elsewhere. In <Knot> and <Knot(Wall drawing)>, Soshi Matsunobe works to undo the idea of a singular, original form. Through repetition, the shape remains the same, yet is never fixed. 

When depth is different despite identical forms, the space, both flat and dimensional,  things are not divided, but come into contact. The line, at times material, and at other times illusionary, ultimately floats between point and plane, between intersection and absence. And in that in-between space, it takes on the weight of volume.