SingartJapan’s Hypnotic Cosmic Blooms
For those of us who had visited the ArtScience Museum between mid October last year and mid January this year, we have been treated with international renowned Japanese media artist, Naoka Tosa’s “Sound of Ikebana: Four Seasons” exhibition.
Shot at 2000 frames per second, this series of 4 videos had captured the vibration of expansively variegated hues of paint in ardent response to melodious sound waves: the colours chosen reflected their source of inspiration – Buddhist, Peranakan, Indian and Chinese cultures.
Its theme of winter, spring, summer and fall was heightened by its presentation alongside succinctly relevant much loved Japanese poetry by haiku masters, like Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson and Kobayashi Issa.
Their holistic artistic clout is, undoubtedly, 1 that deftly mirrors the merry dynamic marriage between a refreshing quenching by TeamLab’s digital “Universe of Water Particles” and Chiho Aoshima’s explosively vibrant animated films, as exemplified by “City Glow” – an ingeniously contemporary take on the Edo-steep ukiyo-e mingled with cutting edge manga and anime.
After we had gleefully drunk our fill of Tosa’s spectacular visual feast by the Marina Bay Sands, we were, unsurprisingly, left panting for more.
Rising to our calls for a resounding encore befitting her artistic statue, Ikkan Art Gallery will bring to our shores yet more of the artist’s ‘cultural computing’, with the works in her brand new “Space Flower” series promising to up the ante by delving deep into her very own abundantly creative Japanese psyche.
Her upcoming exhibition, therefore, continues to pay spiritually reverent homage to Rimpa, a major historical school of painting founded in Kyoto, Japan in the 17th century, during the Edo period.
And this time Tosa uses as muse Korin Ogata as back then he had most characteristically expressively used its signature palette of luxurious golden colours. So much so the art world in his land of the rising sun had ceremoniously acknowledged that he was a key exponent of this Japanese artistic style.
Without a doubt, his “Wind God and Thunder God” painting has come to espouse the very essence of what is deemed sacred in this painterly coterie. After all, Rimpa means ‘school of Korin’ in Japan.
Therefore, Tosa’s latest video art delight in the deliberate fragmentation of heady florets, in riotous bloom, by primeval earthen elements of gale and clap; becoming an allegorical tribute to the fading of not only old artistic customs, but the gradual demise of cultural ones as well.
Yet the ever so lively shades of colours Tosa has conscientiously picked do more than a ceremonial nod to its far eastern past, they cast a spell of pristine hope as a new future beckons; heralded into vivid existence by Fujin’s ferocious howls and Susanoo’s persistent rumble: the imminent is thus laid upon the cornerstone of Japanese traditions.
Hence, “Oiran” alludes to the eponymous courtesans popularly populating Edo Japan in the 18th and 19th centuries. Its resplendent roses exude a gallant beauty while their fragility evokes a dream-like presence, at once ephemeral and elusive: as though capable of effortlessly morphing into charismatic performers steeply entrenched in the Kabuki institutions.
While “Space Flower”, with its riot of floral blooms in galaxy’s stratosphere, symbolizes life that references to each of our individual selves. A pristine life acquired through the act of maturing, where we have to whole-heartedly reject our personal, cultural and social histories regardless of the tremendous pain we consequently self-inflict; for we intuitively know we will come out stronger.
The outcome of this soul-wrenching act is “Space Jungle” – a well deserved blossoming of wilderness on a planet far away from our very own. On the surface of this foreign world, abundant water and galactic flora abound, while rich streams of mineral lodes streak layers upon layers deep underground, navigating the chaos of zero gravity in obliterate spurts of sprightly dance.
Circling the planet is a moon. But not just any moon. It is a “Moon Flower” that gleefully presents a continuous kaleidoscope of cacophonic floral exploding into deliriously red and purifyingly white blooms – a salient testimony of Tosa’s source of magical inspiration: Ogata’s painting of “Red and White Plum Blossoms”.
It is, therefore, a fitting climax. But her interstellar pilgrimage through Rimpa does not dry up there: Ogata’s “Wind God and Thunder God” next takes center stage in her innovative imagination.
Consequently, Tosa’s very own “Wind God” unfolds as the mythical Fujin unfurls across the cosmic skyline, moving ever so slowly ever so closer towards us, who are Earth-bound. And through it all announces the coming of her equally own “Thunder God”.
Selfish and mischievous Susanoo may be, his promise of heavy downpours of luxuriant rain onto “Space Jungle” endears him to us and all who call this mystic galactic world home. As does “Wind God”’s assurance that Fujin’s eternal plan is the cross-pollination of all that buds every spring and bursts forth every summer.
This final catalytic stimulation has thus birthed Taso’s ultimate crescendo: the secure anchoring of her “Space Flower” collection of works in an ecologically viable artistic universe that will stand the test of infinite time.
Shoot for Tosa’s utopic star: her “Space Flower” series will be exhibited at Ikkan Art Gallery, 39 Keppel Road, #01-05 Artspace@Helutrans, Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore 089065 from 5 September to 1 November this year.
Feature photo: Naoko Tosa’s “Thunder God” Video
Right photo: Naoko Tosa’a “Space Jungle” Video
Photo credits: Ikkan Art Gallery
