Internationally acclaimed installation and performance artist Chiharu Shiota creates an awe-inspiring, site-specific installation of woollen thread within the beautiful 18th-century Chapel at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP).

Born in Japan, the Berlin-based artist has received critical recognition worldwide for large-scale works such as The Key In The Hand (2015), an elaborate entanglement of red thread and keys, which she made when selected to represent Japan at the 56th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Her radical yet poetic artistic approach explores personal themes of loss and memory through intricately woven installations, referencing life, death and belonging.

At YSP, Shiota’s sweeping web of white thread emerges from a steel structure referencing a musical instrument no longer there. Rising from the chancery, it is an ethereal composition floating towards the heavens. Drawing from the history of the building, the work responds to and activates the Chapel’s unique heritage, revisiting and honouring architectural elements that no longer exist.

Woven from 2,000 balls of wool, Shiota’s use of white marks a recent departure from the familiar red and black thread for which she has become known. Characteristic of her work’s resonance with memory and human relationships, the installation interlaces the physical and conceptual to create a new visual plane – as if painting in mid-air.

An extraordinary and captivating experience, Beyond Time references the Chapel’s rich history and years of human presence, dating back to 1744, making poignant allusion to the bells that were rung, the songs that were sung, and the lives that revolved around it, from cradle to grave.

Born 1972 in Osaka, Shiota initially studied painting at Seika University, Kyoto. During this time, she undertook an exchange residency at Canberra School of Art, Australia. It was here that she began to explore the boundaries of painting, staging her first performance, Becoming Painting (1994), in which she used her body as a canvas. She moved to Germany in 1996 and continued her studies, firstly in Braunschweig and later Berlin, where she lives today. Her installations began receiving international attention in 2000, primarily through the group exhibition Continental Shift at the Ludwig Forum, Aachen and also the 2001 Yokohama Triennale.

An artist-designed limited edition print accompanies the exhibition and will be available to purchase, with all proceeds supporting YSP.