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Life Force
The Japanese artist Nana Tamamoto, who is in her early 30s, was born and
brought up in Toyama Prefecture, in west-central Japan, where, as a child,
she suffered from vision problems. She overcame them and went on to specialize
in textile arts at Seian University of Art and Design, eventually getting
a job as a designer at an Osaka-based fashion company. About 10 years ago,
after recovering from a serious illness, Tamamoto made a big decision---to
take the plunge and commit her energy full-time to making art.
Since then, buoyed by the “ganbaru spirit” of which her countrymen are so proud (ganbaru is a Japanese verb that means “to work hard and persevere”), she has seen her career take off. In one of her most memorable exhibitions, in 2007, she showed mixed-media paintings and similarly textured, abstract sculptures inside the traditional, thatched-roof houses of a historic village in Toyama. Late last year, she presented a new body of work at Galerie Miyawaki, one of Kyoto’s oldest and best-known galleries.
To the making of her colorful, abstract works, Tamamoto brings a well-balanced
mixture of spontaneity and deliberation. She gives each of her paintings
a title (for example, Delusion, Perplexity or After a Party is Over) that
reflects the emotional or psychological state she was in when she created
it. The foldable, six-foot-wide triptych shown here, made in 2011, is called
Inside and Outside.
In
her paintings, Tamamoto uses scraps of fabric, which she sews and forms into
flattened-bobble shapes or into sinewy strips that resemble roots or other
organic forms. With its rich surface textures, her work shares affinities with
that of the avant-garde, abstract paintings of the art informel artists in
Europe and of the rule-breaking Gutai artists in Japan during the immediate
post-World War Ⅱperiod. The artist says she believes it is important to have a “pure heart”
and to approach life with the sense of compassion and understanding that
flow from that guileless outlook on the world. “I’m interested in the life
force; I try to express it in my work,” she says.
Edward M. Gomez
Edward M. Gomez is a critic, journalist and author. He has written articles
and essays for many publications, including the New York Times, Japan Times,
Art in America, Metropolis,
Art &Antique, Artnews and Raw Vision.
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Journalist, author, critic, graphic designer, curator and environmental activist