Check out Kaori Takamura’s Artwork

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kaori Takamura.

Kaori, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I am originally from the suburbs of Tokyo Japan and moved to the United States in 90s. I just began my 15th year in a small town in Arizona where I live with my family and work out of my studio as an artist. After I graduated from art school in Tokyo I became a graphic designer and I worked as a designer for more than 20 years. During my practice, I created many logos or marks for brands and corporations otherwise known as Brand Identity or Corporate Identity. Because of this experience, I was always fascinated by symbolic images that are used in our everyday life and the relationship between these symbolic images and people.

In my art, I often choose nostalgic subject matter, mostly from American iconic symbols. People often ask me why I don’t choose subject matters from Japanese traditional things. In fact, I was grown up with the admiration of American POP culture in the 70s and 80s watching American TV and listening to music and this is the nostalgic imagery that comes to my mind. I moved from design a little over 11 years ago and started to paint. I took some classes at a community college and one day my instructor encouraged me to pursue my art more seriously; I did and here I am today.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
Through my expression, I try to arouse nostalgic memories of childhood innocence and its mischievous charm using the method of hand stitching with wooden elements. Each of the elements in my work are carefully and uniquely shaped with a hint of animism and familiar motifs cited from our everyday lives. Each of the elements in my work are applied with colorful fabric patterns that reverberate with a joyous and hearty feeling. These paintings, although resembling fabric or textile art, are in actuality mixed media large-sized acrylic paintings on wooden panels with the addition of laser cut wood shapes that are also painted, silkscreened, and stitched with various colored threads. I rough sketch my concepts digitally then the digital files of my cut-out shape elements including the stitching holes are transferred into vector line artwork that are then exported into AutoCAD files for large format laser cutting. After each cut-out shape element has been laser cut I then apply additional silk-screened prints to them. Finally, after the painting and silk-screening, the cut-out elements are hand stitched onto the finished painted and laser cut wooden art panel.

Have things improved for artists? What should cities do to empower artists?
Finances are always a challenge for artists. Especially if you want to create something extravagant, you sometimes hesitate to create it due to cost issues. Sometimes I have second thoughts like ‘Is it worth making it? I think keeping a balance is important as an artist. I have two types of projects; Type one is where I create to support my earnings like commission pieces. The other type is the art that I really believe in and want to create for my personal expression.

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
Although I occasionally participate in group shows such as the upcoming annual group show Chaos Theory 19 (a one day event on October 5th at Legend City Studio), my work is regularly represented by Gebert Contemporary https://gebertartaz.com.

I often receive complements from complete strangers through social media or via email. Once I showed my art work at the Phoenix Airport Museum and some traveler from the East Coast saw my work and created an art video out of it and sent it to me. It was such a joy. I think because of the fact that artists often work alone, this kind of encouragement brings optimism to struggling artists.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kaoritakamura.com
• Email: takamura3@mac.com

Image Credit:
Kaori Takamura

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