■WORKS■
Paper and I
Taeko Tomoda
-----Express the universe on paper
The motif I’m now interested in is ‘a sense of touch’. I made use of my hand-made paper to give a clear shape to this motif. Nowadays everything is superficial. ‘A sense of sight’ is regarded most important and it seems that we’ve lost ‘the sense of touch’. Rough, warty, fluffy, slick, mellow, coarse ------ we sense through touching with our hands or seeing with our eyes. And these senses have a great effect on how we feel. I’m deeply fascinated with these surface senses or ‘the sense of touch’. Melted paper materials change into art works with my hands and fingers. The locus of hands and fingers, sometimes deliberate and sometimes not --- cooperative work of light, wind and water, all beyond my power, sometimes supportive and sometimes not, --- concentration and relief--- and then appears a new paper work of mine. Though there are so many materials for art works, Indian ink (sumi) and paper (kami) attracts my attention. I feel the relationship between them is extremely tense. I even feel a sort of prayer in their relationship. We unconsciously feel the color and the smell of Indian ink with our whole body. I’d like you to appreciate paper, its friendliness, richness and deepness. When you close your eyes, when you cannot rely on your sight, your sense of touch comes to life again. It starts to be active again in the inner place of your body. I do wish you feel its vibration yourself.