Chopping Firewood

Tadahiro Gunji’s intimate collages embody the Japanese concept of “MA,” a philosophy that embraces negative space and the intervals between things. Central to his “Collectivity” series is his unique approach to “In-between”—a method of seeking meaning in liminal spaces, especially between dichotomies: past and present, self and environment, presence and absence. Gunji’s practice is a meditation on the intangible, an attempt to capture the fleeting, unspoken sensations that exist in these gaps and translate them into tangible compositions.

For Gunji, collage is a way to connect fragments of memory, weaving them into poetic, deeply personal images. His work resists mere reconstruction; instead, he uses it as a vehicle for emotional resonance, layering impressions of time and place. Some of the works in this series take inspiration from the lyrics of Joni Mitchell—her ability to distill complex emotions into song mirroring his own instinct for assembling pieces of the past into something newly whole.

Drawn to the layered history of paper, Gunji sources materials from vintage books, retaining traces of their past—signatures, scribbled notes, faded ink—allowing time itself to become an active element in his work. His process is not simply a reconstruction of found materials but a deeply personal act of mapping perception. Instead of using pre-existing images, he renders his own impressions of the world—the glint of light on water, the movement of wind through trees—onto paper, transforming them into textures and patterns that build delicate, immersive scenes.

Through this approach, Gunji’s collages dissolve the boundary between self and surroundings, weaving together memory, observation, and materiality. The result is a body of work that exists in the space between, where form and feeling are inseparable, and time folds into itself in quiet, meditative rhythms.