Spotlight Artist

Kaori Takamura

West
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Featured in New American Paintings

Artist Statement

This series, Between Shapes, investigates emotions while expressing distant memories of childhood innocence and its mischievous charm. Through my expression, I try to evoke nostalgic memories of joy from a simpler time, using the method of hand-stitching on wooden elements. Each of the elements in my work is carefully and uniquely shaped, with a hint of animism and the familiarity of motifs cited from everyday life. I apply colorful fabric patterns that reverberate with a joyous and hearty feeling in all of my compositional elements. For me, the process of stitching on these elements reveals women’s tangled and intricate daily feelings, and this is what I believe to be the core of my expression.

I strive to transform ordinary objects into commentaries on life through my metaphorical stitching-together of various symbols, themes, concepts, and emotions to form a kind of contemporary patchwork quilt of expressions. I like to incorporate unconventional textile methods (like laser cutting) that are based on traditional fabric patterning, embroidery, and lace vector art as a way of expressing women's tangled feelings.

Artist's Additional works

Works shared by the artist outside of their featured New American Paintings selections

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Featured artwork

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