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Masakazu Kobayashi creates installations using both natural and manmade materials such as silk and aluminium. Like his artistic partner and wife Naomi Kobayashi, his relationship to and with his surroundings is fundamental to his work, which reflect a concern with space, light and harmony. The Kobayashis live together in a mountainous region outside Kyoto, in a house built by Masakazu, which echoes their artistic concerns. Although both artists have worked independently for several years and are both acclaimed artists in their own right, they have recently chosen to exhibit together, giving joint expression to their common philosophy. Each piece is still created separately but then brought together to make one installation. This was the format of their contribution to the innovative ?Textural Space? project in the UK, which was originated by the Surrey Institute of Art and Design University College, UK and partly funded by Visiting Arts, UK. The touring exhibition in 2001 featured thirteen leading contemporary textile artists from Japan and focused on works that tested the three-dimensional potential of textiles within an installation format. The first elements to be encountered were Masakazu Kobayashi?s ?Gate of Bow? and ?Pond of Bow?. These were composed of several tensile ?bows? fashioned from thread and fine aluminium shafts, and randomly placed in the gallery space. In the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, the curator of the project Lesley Millar points out ?the delicate balance between order and chaos which is central to the work?. She writes, ?Masakazu refers to the importance of line and the possibilities inherent in the single thread, as we look at these two works we are aware of the effect of an accumulation of many, many single lines. Each thread determines a movement in space and each is dependent upon and sets up a relationship with its neighbour. Each bow creates a sense of its own direction but because each is quite short, the travel of the eye is halted, continuously returning to the impact of the totality of the piece, increasingly aware of the density of the linear structure.? Masakazu Kobayashi dense and overlaid structures gave the appearance of random movement which both contrasted with and complemented Naomi Kobayashi?s pieces. Source: Based on text by Lesley Millar in the ?Textural Space? catalogue