Tomo Sakurai
櫻井智
Born in Nagano, Japan. Lives and works in Tokyo.
Tomo Sakurai had an awakening of her talent in pencil drawing as a teenager.
It was the beauty of the shadow that completely fascinated her.
After she studied graphic design at art university, she went ahead to the path of the black and white by self-study.
She draws conceptual art based on "The duality of things" and "Liberation from the limitations of the unconscious".
Pencil artist who expresses color in monochrome.
Nagano Prefecture, was born. Lives in Tokyo.
At the age of 13, she was fascinated by the beauty of shade and began drawing pencil drawings.
Studied graphic design at an art university, then self-taught to the path of pencil drawing. I went another way once, but 13 years later, I started drawing again after a certain thing.
Draw conceptual art at an intermediate point, centering on "two-sidedness of things" and "freedom from unconscious restrictions".
A pencil artist who expresses colors in monochrome.
Overseas, it has a contract with "GALERIE bruno massa", which has offices in Paris, NY, South Korea, and Georgia, and has an agent contract with a management company in Japan.
Established TOMO ART WORK STUDIO in 2021.
My practice is an attempt to perceive all phenomena as a single continuum, that is, as gradation, and to explore the forms of equilibrium that emerge within it.
Using various materials such as acrylic paint, oil paint, sumi ink, resin, mineral pigments, metal, wood, wax, metal leaf, glass, clay, and moss, I incorporate processes such as dissolution, oxidation, and changes caused by heat.
While observing the processes through which materials transform, react, and interfere with one another, I allow their inherent qualities and traces of time to remain within the work.
In this process, contrast and equilibrium are not fixed, but constantly fluctuate. Elements such as hardness and softness, transparency and opacity, light and shadow, generation and collapse do not remain clearly separated; rather, they influence one another and gradually form a single state.
Within this process of materials interfering with and transforming one another, a “field” emerges in which each element is neither separated nor unified into a single state. I understand this field as “Awai.”
“Awai” is a relational field in which different things coexist while preserving their differences. I consider equilibrium to be a delicate and constantly changing state that temporarily arises within it.
For me, creation is not the act of unilaterally projecting my own will onto a work. It is an act of observing the relationship between materials and phenomena, receiving the changes, tensions, and fluctuations that arise there, and fixing them as a single state.
From the perspective of perceiving all things as gradation, I regard making as an act of capturing the “aspect of Awai” that appears within that continuum.
And a work is a fragment that has arisen through that process, held in form.
2007 Graduated from Yokohama College of Art and Design, Yokohama, Japan
Solo Solo
2021 TOMO SAKURAI Print Exhibition Vol.1 (RESURRECTION, Tokyo)
2020 Tomo Sakurai Exhibition (Off The Street Gallery, Tokyo)
MONOCHROME 2020 Tomo Sakurai exhibition (Art Gallery SANAGI, Tokyo)
Group
2021 Tomo Sakurai and shinPo mai 2person exhibition "Totan no me" (Laugh & Peace Art Gallery, Osaka)
Installation of a 2 person exhibition "Silver Factory" (Double tall art & Espresso bar, Tokyo)
Art Fair
2021 ART FAIR TOKYO 2021 (Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo)
2020 artTNZ produced by AFT with APCA (TERRADA ART COMPLEX II, Tokyo)
Museum
2020 Korea Art Museum (Soul, Korea)
Awards
2007 "Yokohama College of Art Graduation Exhibition" Encouragement Award
私の制作は、あらゆる事象をひとつの連続体、すなわちグラデーションとして捉え、そのなかに生まれる均衡のあり方を探る試みです。
アクリル絵具をはじめ、油絵具、墨、樹脂、岩絵具、金属、木、蝋、箔、ガラス、粘土、苔など、さまざまな素材を用いながら、溶解、酸化、熱による変化などを取り入れています。そして素材が変質し、反応し、互いに干渉する過程を観察しながら、それぞれが持つ性質や、時間の痕跡を作品のなかに残していきます。
その過程では、対比や均衡は固定されずに絶えず揺れ動いています。硬さと柔らかさ、透明性と不透明性、光と影、生成と崩壊といった要素は、明確に分かれるのではなく互いに影響し合いながらひとつの状態を形づくっていきます。
このように素材同士が干渉し変化していくなかには、各要素が分離されることも単一の状態にまとまることもない《場》が生まれます。私はその場を「あわい」と捉えています。
「あわい」とは、異なるもの同士が差異を保ったまま共存する関係の場です。そして均衡とは、その内部に一時的に立ち上がる、繊細で変化し続ける状態だと考えています。
私にとって創作とは、自己の意志を一方的に作品へ投影することではありません。素材と現象の関係を観察し、そこに生まれる変化や緊張、揺らぎを受け取りながら、ひとつの状態として定着させていく行為です。
万物をグラデーションとして捉える視点から、制作とは、その連続体のなかに現れる「あわいの相」をとらえる行為だと考えています。
そして作品とは、その過程で立ち上がったひとつの断片を、かたちとして留めたものなのです。
2007 Graduated from Yokohama College of Art and Design, Department of Graphic Design
2021 Established TOMO ART WORK STUDIO
Solo exhibition
2021 TOMO SAKURAI Print Exhibition Vol.1 (RESURRECTION, Tokyo)
2020 Tomo Sakurai Exhibition (Off The Street Gallery, Tokyo)
MONOCHROME2020 Tomo Sakurai Original Painting Exhibition (Art Gallery Chrysalis, Tokyo)
Group exhibition
2021 Tomo Sakurai and shinPo mai Two-person exhibition-Bud of charcoal coating- (Laugh & Peace Art Gallery Osaka, Osaka)
Installation Two-person Exhibition "Silver Paper Factory" (Double tall art & Espresso bar, Tokyo)
Secret exhibition "UNCHAiN" (Harajuku somewhere, Tokyo)
Art fair
2021 Art Fair Tokyo 2021 (Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo)
2020 artTNZ produced by AFT with APCA (TERRADA ART COMPLEX II, Tokyo)
Museum
2020 Korean Art Museum (Seoul)
Award
2007 "Yokohama College of Art and Design Graduation Exhibition" Encouragement Award
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When I am silent, I fall into that place
Where everything is music
───Rumi
Today I have seen the works by contemporary artist Tomo Sakurai. It was an arranged meeting in the sunny winter day. I’m always happy to go out on the days like this. Everything was black and white, the simplicity of colors made me turn my attention to the texture, gradations, mysterious forms, that move, expend, sing in its own language. No, not language, they sing in silence. I always try to fill my wardrobe with colors and my days with music, and I guess I miss some other beautiful aspect of life.
Once I’ve heard that when you are sad it’s like the world looses it’s colors. Our emotions effect how we see the world, how we react, what we expect. But the world without colors, is it so bad? The world is just stripped out of it’s clothes and accessories, fancy perfumes and make up.
And what is left then? Just naked truth.
The truth that we are afraid to face. Some people is afraid to be alone for even sometime, because they don’t want to face themselves as they are. Imperfect, hurt maybe, but a beautiful human who can love, share joy, overcome challenges. The truth is very simple, colored in white and black.
Some people turn on TV just to avoid the silence, and not knowing that silence speaks more than any sounds. And black and white may express much more than any colors.
In the tarot deck there is a “Death” card, portraying a skeleton, but the meaning is not a death itself. The meaning is transformation and rebirth, facing the truth. Skeleton, without skin or muscles, nothing left but the truth.
If I keep writing I feel I will produce even more chaotic thoughts. Let me stop here with realization of something important and something still covered in mystery. I will stop right now and sit in silence facing noting else but the truth.
Curator
静かになったら落ちていく
全てが音楽になる場所に
───ルーミー
晴れた冬の日の打ち合わせだった。こんな日のお出かけはいつも嬉しい気分になる。
コンテンポラリーアーティスト、桜井智の作品を見た。作品はモノクロームで非常にシンプルなので、私の注意はテクスチャー、グラデーション、動いて、拡大して、不思議な言語で語ってくる神秘的な形に向かっていった。いや、言語ではなく沈黙を歌っているようだ。
私はいつもワードローブをカラフルなもので満たして、毎日を音楽で満たそうとしているが、人生の別の美しい側面が恋しくはないか？
悲しい時は世界が色を失うと聞いたことがある。もちろん私たちの感情は、周りの見方、反応、期待によって影響を与える。だが果たして色のない世界はそんなに悪いのだろうか？華美な服やアクセサリー、香水、メイクアップが無くなるだけ。
そこには何が残るのか？それは、ただ裸の真実。私たちが直面することを恐れている真実。
ありのままの自分と向き合えず、一人でいることを恐れる人もいるだろう。不完全だと感じて傷ついているかもしれない。しかし人間は、愛し、喜びを分かち合い、困難を乗り越えることができる美しい生き物でもある。真実は非常にシンプルで、白と黒で彩られているのだ。
沈黙を避けるためだけにテレビを付けてみても、沈黙がどんな音よりも多くを語っていることを知らない人がいる。同じように、黒と白はどの色よりも多くのことを表現しているのだ。タロットデッキには、骸骨を描いた「死」のカードがある。
しかし、その意味は「死」そのものではない。真実と向き合い、変容と再生を意味している。骨、皮膚、筋肉といった概念は無くなり、そこには真実だけが残る。書き始めるとさらに混沌とした考えが湧きあがってきた。ここで、謎に包まれた重要なことに気が付いたので、この辺りで止まらない考えの流れを書き終えることにする。筆を止め、沈黙の中に座り、真実に向き合いたい。