Ripples constitutes an installation of new drawings by the Japanese-born artist Ryoko Aoki, whose gossamer sketches in pencil and ink scrutinize both the natural environment and its inhabitants. The title Ripples refers to the artist’s ability to seemingly conjure movement across the surfaces of her delicately rendered works on paper.

Aoki’s calligraphic dreamscapes are culled from several deceptively simple motifs including the harmony of geometric shapes; a head of hair braided into cornrows; and elements borrowed from the pastoral landscape, such as blades of grass and a group of stones. The lines and images emerge both horizontally and vertically through accumulating patterns, recurring dots, a process of tracing through transference, which results in a certain dynamic surface quality.

The precision of the artist’s vision also provides an organizing principle for a wall installation comprised of drawings with ornamental details such as paper cut-outs. As is customary with Aoki’s work, the drawings and installation recall a brilliantly intertwined historical trajectory of Japanese influences, from early pictorial scrolls to contemporary manga.