”I would like to create a work that fully expresses my personality, but… there still isn’t one” (Tomoko)
Instead, this work does exist! It is that of her continuous research, her painting that flows without first rationalising about the form, time and meanings (my works bear no message, she says), her strenuous work, estranged almost to the point of going into a trance and not seeing her hand fall onto the canvas or paper. Tomoko’s work is an “emotional emergency” that makes her chest tighten until it finds an escape, at times almost a painful one. Creativity is seeing things that are not originally there, it is vision. That of Tomoko’s art is characterised by points, joined patiently in geometric arrangements, retelling us dreams. Hers is a subtle work; that on the first impression seems only a precise drawing, very decorative and pleasant to look at, but to a patient, attentive eye transforming itself into a complex representation – it’s a sensation akin to that of looking at the clouds, when they suddenly begin to take the most mesmerising shapes… Here, the emotions spring from the refined, composed elegance that sometimes also threatens to overshadow the path that has led to this formal solution, a momentary point of equilibrium which represents the work of art and that exudes a serene joy. Her Mandalas are very similar in appearance to those of other artists, yet made different by the peculiarity of their execution. In fact, they are different to those created by the street art artists such as Beau Stanton, or Damien Hirst’s paints and butterflies. Following a regular and ordinate grid, obeying the rules of translational symmetry, the myriads of basic modules, identical to each other, fall together to form breath-taking visions of Tomoko’s Mandalas, contextualised in airy compositions. Curious are those who look, wide-eyed, scrupulously attentive, at the things presented to them, and curious is Tomoko, when, in the midst of her fine brushwork she “uncovers”, planting them there, small signs of life: insects, microscopic animals, birds, here some stray sprouting seeds and there a semi-obscured human face; and all of these under the expanse of colours that make them reminiscent of carpets, with deliberate rips, like breaks in the sky, that widen the vision. For an artist, an exhibition is a break to present their work, a brief contact with those who will be excited by it. To quote Yourcenar: “The relationships with others do not have time-span; when satisfaction is obtained, the service rendered, the work finished, they cease. What I was able to say has been said, what I could learn was learned. Now let us try our luck at other jobs” And good luck to you, Tomoko! Raphael Paiella, critic and curator Rome, 2014. Instead, this work does exist! It is that of her continuous research, her painting that flows without first rationalising about the form, time and meanings (my works bear no message, she says), her strenuous work, estranged almost to the point of going into a trance and not seeing her hand fall onto the canvas or paper. Tomoko’s work is an “emotional emergency” that makes her chest tighten until it finds an escape, at times almost a painful one. Creativity is seeing things that are not originally there, it is vision. That of Tomoko’s art is characterised by points, joined patiently in geometric arrangements, retelling us dreams. Hers is a subtle work; that on the first impression seems only a precise drawing, very decorative and pleasant to look at, but to a patient, attentive eye transforming itself into a complex representation – it’s a sensation akin to that of looking at the clouds, when they suddenly begin to take the most mesmerising shapes… Here, the emotions spring from the refined, composed elegance that sometimes also threatens to overshadow the path that has led to this formal solution, a momentary point of equilibrium which represents the work of art and that exudes a serene joy. Her Mandalas are very similar in appearance to those of other artists, yet made different by the peculiarity of their execution. In fact, they are different to those created by the street art artists such as Beau Stanton, or Damien Hirst’s paints and butterflies. Following a regular and ordinate grid, obeying the rules of translational symmetry, the myriads of basic modules, identical to each other, fall together to form breath-taking visions of Tomoko’s Mandalas, contextualised in airy compositions. Curious are those who look, wide-eyed, scrupulously attentive, at the things presented to them, and curious is Tomoko, when, in the midst of her fine brushwork she “uncovers”, planting them there, small signs of life: insects, microscopic animals, birds, here some stray sprouting seeds and there a semi-obscured human face; and all of these under the expanse of colours that make them reminiscent of carpets, with deliberate rips, like breaks in the sky, that widen the vision. For an artist, an exhibition is a break to present their work, a brief contact with those who will be excited by it. To quote Yourcenar: “The relationships with others do not have time-span; when satisfaction is obtained, the service rendered, the work finished, they cease. What I was able to say has been said, what I could learn was learned. Now let us try our luck at other jobs” And good luck to you, Tomoko! Raphael Paiella, critic and curator Rome, 2014. Instead, this work does exist! It is that of her continuous research, her painting that flows without first rationalising about the form, time and meanings (my works bear no message, she says), her strenuous work, estranged almost to the point of going into a trance and not seeing her hand fall onto the canvas or paper. Tomoko’s work is an “emotional emergency” that makes her chest tighten until it finds an escape, at times almost a painful one. Creativity is seeing things that are not originally there, it is vision. That of Tomoko’s art is characterised by points, joined patiently in geometric arrangements, retelling us dreams. Hers is a subtle work; that on the first impression seems
“Encrypted graffiti pictorials”
The laborious and detail-oriented “Encrypted graffiti pictorials”, which Tomoko Fait creates with a very personal, coded language alphabet of refined expressiveness, draw from the deep reality of her unconscious, of her daydreaming, imagining and inventing these eclectic solutions, to reflect and make one reflect about the world, seeking answers to the fundamental questions of existence and building vortex circuits and circular, intricate mazes, in the meanders of which you can live and fantasise freely. The proposed forms, gathered from a strong and lively imagination, rest on bases that arise from a strong and coherent project design, where matter is conjoined to thought in a close, symbiotic relationship, creating emotions and fanciful visions, dreamlike and mystical, inserted in a dimension of universal cosmic pantheism. The evoked projections also refer to her existential journey with reference to her oriental origins, which remain a primary root of her being and her essence in the way of thinking about art and making art. For Tomoko, a picture is a space in which everything is intertwined and becomes simultaneous in the aesthetic and visual impact: the synthesis of the image as a formal principle is changed into a unitary, totalitarian structure of the composition, in homogeneous units, with a connection ratio marked and built by the various sequential moments of the work, in an articulate and compelling scenario. Her production is oriented towards a gradual re-appropriation of the intrinsic meaning of the artistic material, which in the manifestation of visual and informal concepts, of an abstract and objective matrix, becomes a category of thought and expression of her own subjectivity. For the artist, it’s a matter of making visible whatever comes from the world of the imagination, to enclose within a clearly defined and delimited space whatever lives and feeds “elsewhere” and is surrounded by an atmosphere of enigmatic attraction. She manages to tune her work with a kind of personalised communication theory, into which different joints merge in balanced equilibrium, intertwine and retie with a “superior aesthetic and absolute criterium.” She measures space in an unreal way, viable: hers is one dimensional and composition geometry, liquid, fluid, dynamic, with movements led by a minimum variation of colour, essential and controlled, which gives the whole perception of the absence of space-time . The tonal nuances based on the play of black/white and their combinations of grey in the reflections of light and shade, help to reduce the differences between the image thought of and its reproduction, translating the idea into visual form. She follows the criteria and principles based on her special communicative language, with marked changes in the syntactic rhythm, returning a mimetic impulse of thought, cutting it out and sparing it the supernatural dimension and taking it back into a prospect of accessible receptiveness shared with the viewer. The idea impressed upon the picture becomes tangible thought in a constantly reversible evolving process, in which rational order is suspended and subverted by the dominance of introspective psychology, which builds its own shape. Comment by: Elena Gollini Venice, September 2014. (Palazzo Rota-Ivancich) The laborious and detail-oriented “Encrypted graffiti pictorials”, which Tomoko Fait creates with a very personal, coded language alphabet of refined expressiveness, draw from the deep reality of her unconscious, of her daydreaming, imagining and inventing these eclectic solutions, to reflect and make one reflect about the world, seeking answers to the fundamental questions of existence and building vortex circuits and circular, intricate mazes, in the meanders of which you can live and fantasise freely. The proposed forms, gathered from a strong and lively imagination, rest on bases that arise from a strong and coherent project design, where matter is conjoined to thought in a close, symbiotic relationship, creating emotions and fanciful visions, dreamlike and mystical, inserted in a dimension of universal cosmic pantheism. The evoked projections also refer to her existential journey with reference to her oriental origins, which remain a primary root of her being and her essence in the way of thinking about art and making art. For Tomoko, a picture is a space in which everything is intertwined and becomes simultaneous in the aesthetic and visual impact: the synthesis of the image as a formal principle is changed into a unitary, totalitarian structure of the composition, in homogeneous units, with a connection ratio marked and built by the various sequential moments of the work, in an articulate and compelling scenario. Her production is oriented towards a gradual re-appropriation of the intrinsic meaning of the artistic material, which in the manifestation of visual and informal concepts, of an abstract and objective matrix, becomes a category of thought and expression of her own subjectivity. For the artist, it’s a matter of making visible whatever comes from the world of the imagination, to enclose within a clearly defined and delimited space whatever lives and feeds “elsewhere” and is surrounded by an atmosphere of enigmatic attraction. She manages to tune her work with a kind of personalised communication theory, into which different joints merge in balanced equilibrium, intertwine and retie with a “superior aesthetic and absolute criterium.” She measures space in an unreal way, viable: hers is one dimensional and composition geometry, liquid, fluid, dynamic, with movements led by a minimum variation of colour, essential and controlled, which gives the whole perception of the absence of space-time . The tonal nuances based on the play of black/white and their combinations of grey in the reflections of light and shade, help to reduce the differences between the image thought of and its reproduction, translating the idea into visual form. She follows the criteria and principles based on her special communicative language, with marked changes in the syntactic rhythm, returning a mimetic impulse of thought, cutting it out and sparing it the supernatural dimension and taking it back into a prospect of accessible receptiveness shared with the viewer. The idea impressed upon the picture becomes tangible thought in a constantly reversible evolving process, in which rational order is suspended and subverted by the dominance
“A Magical Universe of Points”
The art of Tomoko is a special art, different from what we are usually accustomed to seeing. Her work, which has only a hint of ancient Japanese tradition, brings out instead an extremely new and extremely personal style. Whether it’s a burst of colour or black hatching on white canvas, these works are all loaded with enormous internal energy that governs the musicality of the composition and merges with the movement, sometimes sinuous, sometimes more geometrical, of its forms. Tomoko Fait performs her work with great meticulousness: in fact, each sign, each single trace in the painting is done strictly by hand, using a technique that consists of making tiny dots that together form a representation of large dimensions. In works such as “Creation and Light” (2002) or “illusion” (2008), the canvas is densely decorated until every millimeter is used, creating images full of joy and great intensity. On the other hand, in a work like “The three wise men” (2003), in addition to the world of flowers and decorations from a past that is distant to us, there is also the human figure, but this is only hinted at in the faces in a picture that are far from an anatomical and realistic rendering, but traced as if to interrupt the soft rhythm of decorative texture, exploding in patterns of black and bright red. Despite the poetry that comes alive in the compositions of this artist, all her work is marked by great precision; it seems almost as though a geometrical order also lurks behind the seemingly freer forms. Rigour, therefore, is the basis of her modus operandi and characterises the attention to even the smallest detail, and it is these microscopic signs that form the whole representation. However, although Tomoko Fait uses such a precise technique, a sense of magic reigns in her works, of a universe made immense by the multitude of points that trace beautiful pictures, sometimes halfway between dreams and evasion in an unknown dimension. Interiority and originality are the key elements in the activity of this artist, whose works project the viewer into an enchanted, suspended world – a world in which every effort of interpretation seems to fade, giving way to a purely sensory reception, or rather to a loss of the senses in new universes. Lea Ficca Il Muro mag Latina, April 2013. The art of Tomoko is a special art, different from what we are usually accustomed to seeing. Her work, which has only a hint of ancient Japanese tradition, brings out instead an extremely new and extremely personal style. Whether it’s a burst of colour or black hatching on white canvas, these works are all loaded with enormous internal energy that governs the musicality of the composition and merges with the movement, sometimes sinuous, sometimes more geometrical, of its forms. Tomoko Fait performs her work with great meticulousness: in fact, each sign, each single trace in the painting is done strictly by hand, using a technique that consists of making tiny dots that together form a representation of large dimensions. In works such as “Creation and Light” (2002) or “illusion” (2008), the canvas is densely decorated until every millimeter is used, creating images full of joy and great intensity. On the other hand, in a work like “The three wise men” (2003), in addition to the world of flowers and decorations from a past that is distant to us, there is also the human figure, but this is only hinted at in the faces in a picture that are far from an anatomical and realistic rendering, but traced as if to interrupt the soft rhythm of decorative texture, exploding in patterns of black and bright red. Despite the poetry that comes alive in the compositions of this artist, all her work is marked by great precision; it seems almost as though a geometrical order also lurks behind the seemingly freer forms. Rigour, therefore, is the basis of her modus operandi and characterises the attention to even the smallest detail, and it is these microscopic signs that form the whole representation. However, although Tomoko Fait uses such a precise technique, a sense of magic reigns in her works, of a universe made immense by the multitude of points that trace beautiful pictures, sometimes halfway between dreams and evasion in an unknown dimension. Interiority and originality are the key elements in the activity of this artist, whose works project the viewer into an enchanted, suspended world – a world in which every effort of interpretation seems to fade, giving way to a purely sensory reception, or rather to a loss of the senses in new universes. Lea Ficca Il Muro mag Latina, April 2013. The art of Tomoko is a special art, different from what we are usually accustomed to seeing. Her work, which has only a hint of ancient Japanese tradition, brings out instead an extremely new and extremely personal style. Whether it’s a burst of colour or black hatching on white canvas, these works are all loaded with enormous internal energy that governs the musicality of the composition and merges with the movement, sometimes sinuous, sometimes more geometrical, of its forms. Tomoko Fait performs her work with great meticulousness: in fact, each sign, each single trace in the painting is done strictly by hand, using a technique that consists of making tiny dots that together form a representation of large dimensions. In works such as “Creation and Light” (2002) or “illusion” (2008), the canvas is densely decorated until every millimeter is used, creating images full of joy and great intensity. On the other hand, in a work like “The three wise men” (2003), in addition to the world of flowers and decorations from a past that is distant to us, there is also the human figure, but this is only hinted at in the faces in a picture that are far from an anatomical and realistic rendering, but traced as if to interrupt the soft rhythm of decorative texture,