‘I really want to see nothingness in an exact way. But what I find always has meaning. So I try to wash out the meaning.’

Takehito Koganezawa is best known for his digital media, sound and light instillations, but he is also prolific in the low fi medium of drawing, forever documenting and distorting the world with pencil and sketchbook.

One definition of drawing is that, as opposed to painting, it is a line-based medium that uses an empty field; a drawing can’t conceal anything beneath it the way a painting can. In this sense it is considered an honest and unembellished art form, one which is embraced for its immediacy, informality, intimacy and humbleness.

These are all defining qualities of Koganezawa’s drawings. According to him his work is derived from thinking about nothingness; empty space that is open and without purpose – and with their beautifully free and simple lines his drawings possess that rare quality of true understatement.

‘My work is about the hole,’ the Tokyo-born Berlin-based artist says. ‘Like the hole of a donut becomes visible because of the donut, in my work I create the donut to get closer to the hole.’

Everybody knows Japanese architects have got it going on. While we marvel at their edifaces all the time, it is less comon to be able to peek behind the ‘walls’ into their prepatory processes. In recent flea market rummaging I scored Drawings by Contemporary Japanese Architects, comprising diverse 2D work from 87 vivionary architects. Many represent purely fantastical renderings or projects which were abandoned before construction. The book was published in ‘82, way back before 3D design software took over from architects properly cultivating hand-drawing skills.