Tomoko Sugimoto
Tomoko Sugimoto creates large-and small-scaled paintings with acrylic paint, thread and sewing machine to render whimsical figures suspended in abstract yet materially tactile space and express emotions, sensations and vision with abstract thread movements. Children playing, bemused landscapes and everyday objects are recurring subjects in Sugimoto’s living oeuvre. She defines her style with sharp contour and line juxtaposed with delicate pools of soft tints.
In a rhetoric circle, she derives her artwork from the emotive response of her audience and views art as a literal escape mechanism to elicit simple happiness and joy from the viewer. To achieve this, Sugimoto conflates unique Japanese sensibility with universal tools. She borrows traditional Japanese composition to flatten pictorial space and mimic manuscript illustration, while using paint, thread and subject matter to cleave Japanese and American culture.
Her current artwork embraces an exploration of the post-war Japanese identity and correlates to other postmodern studies of figure. In earlier series, Sugimoto produced conceptual mixed-media collages, in which she constructed scenes of ambiguous Asian practice on flattened American commodity. For example, she drew motions of tai chi on deconstructed Tide boxes tied together by heavy-handed brushstrokes.
Born in Tokyo, Japan; Sugimoto lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and has shown at numerous galleries and art fairs in Japan and overseas. She obtained a BFA in Graphic Design from Musashino Art University in Tokyo, and a BFA in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. For over a decade, Sugimoto has remained a core figure in Takashi Murakami's studio as the painting director and art conservator. Even with a substantial art pedigree, Sugimoto is most influenced by her adolescence, following her mother who taught children’s art classes and acted as an art leader to her peers.