ARTIST STATEMENT

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NEW VISUAL VOCABULARY OF ABSTRACT PAINTINGS

I began this series of gouache paintings with a small box of cast-off Japanese brocade silk textiles, worthless “micro” remnants destined for the wastebasket. From my Japanese American heritage; extensive study of Japanese art, history, and culture; and training in the most rigorous US art institutions as a painter, I knew I could construct from remnants a new visual vocabulary of abstract paintings.

These unconventional non-Western remnants became the building blocks for symbolic references to nature and abstraction, a non-Western color palette, the right to left spatial orientation of Japanese screens, and sumi-e ink painting yohaku no bi (the beauty of empty white space). In my astronomical gouache paintings, ma (the shape of space and the flow of space and time) propels shapes and movement across the canvas of watercolor paper. Disparate configurations work in asymmetrical harmony. Early gouache paintings incorporate collage elements because paper paraphernalia and wabi sabi discards have never lost their allure. During art school and early career, mixed media collage drawings were an idiosyncratic respite from my large-scale 6’ x 10’ abstract esoteric acrylic paintings.

MAGNIFYING THE SMALL

The idea of magnifying the small took on greater meaning, as I reflected on how I wanted people to draw closer into the vision I created. My pieces take on an aura of illuminated manuscripts. My Japanese color palette is luminous – non-Western color combinations that contrast, vibrate and also reflect the use of gold and silver paint. My brush strokes are precise; I use very small Escoda 00, 0, 1, 2, and 4 red sable brushes.

MY ISSEI AND NISEI FOREBEARERS

The Japanese have always revered beauty, even in the humblest everyday object. Every ethnic culture develops its own intrinsic visual vocabulary and means of artistic expression. People use whatever found materials are available to create beauty and bring humanity into life. During WWII, my father and mother and their families were relocated from their California homes to the desolate Japanese American internment camps in Amache, southeastern Colorado, and Santa Fe, the DOJ camp in New Mexico. Creating art became a way displaced Issei and Nisei (first and second generation) Japanese Americans survived and overcame loss and grief. As Sansei (third generation), I represent an artist who claims heritage in two cultures, the West and the East.

INCORPORATING A THIRD CULTURE: COSMIC GALACTIC SPACE

After 28 meticulous paintings and drawings, a third culture entered my work: the astronomical world of “macro” galactic space. Was it possible to reflect a larger vision of art and humanity? The images from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes; the Galileo, Cassini, and New Horizon satellites; and the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers captivated me. Who could resist the unfathomable sublime beauty of the far reaches of cosmological space? I wed my small abstractions of Japanese textiles into an extensive ongoing series of paintings incorporating nebulae, galaxies, planets, and celestial configurations. The simultaneous visual presence of Japanese textile motifs and galactic phenomena creates motion through interconnection and transformation. Very small becomes very large and very large becomes very small; time and space merge into a single new reality. These new abstract paintings challenge visual thinking with unlike elements producing unbalanced harmony. Science and art together are to be celebrated because there is painting in the spaces between the stars.

AN ARTIST, COVID-19, AND BEYOND

When the world tragically plunged into the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, artists grappled with the stamp of societal issues on creative vision. Refusing to become paralyzed by this tragedy, I knew my paintings could interpret life during a pandemic. Using visual symbolism, I tackled the themes of deadly virus, life, death, inflection points, and humor to counter tragedy. I stumbled like everyone else through isolation and grief but re-set my sights on the cosmos, on the data stream from the most powerful telescope ever built, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Making the invisible visible, JWST became operational in July 2022, relaying images that are beyond imagination. My vision of painting merges with cutting edge science. I paint on the edge of the unprecedented.