The latest extraordinary, space-defying installation by Yasuaki Onishi now on show at the Rice Gallery

Osaka-based artist Yasuaki Onishi uses humble, simple materials – black glue, plastic sheets, nylon thread – but somehow a large space is majestically occupied with his inverted landscapes, the “reverse of volume”, allowing a viewer to occupy a space that would otherwise, perceptively, be given over to something of monumental density. Now showing in Texas’ Rice University Art Gallery, Onishi’s latest installation makes real his interest in the invisible, “like time, or air, or gravity” – constructing a suspension of weight/space/belief that can be observed from all angles and never to the same effect.

Yasuaki Onishis: reverse of volume RG is now on show at Houston’s Rice Gallery until June 24.