Tomoko Abe: Pedestals for Amusement and Inquiry

Future Memory, 2023. Glass, Pipes, Cotton Organza, Video projection. Each 65 x 40 x 10.5 inches (glass panel with stand)

By JONATHAN GOODMAN May 16, 2024

Tomoko Abe, born in Japan and educated in Edinburgh, now lives in Rye, a suburban town in New York, located very close to the Long Island Sound. Currently, she is president of a women’s art space in Brooklyn (DUMBO): A.I.R. Gallery. A good deal of Abe's art, often supported by silver construction pipes four feet high, is found as textured images on both sides of glass; the arrangement of several of these pipe structures, placed together in conscious fashion, can serve as environmental art.

There is other work as well: cast glass sculpture, ceramics and cyanotype print collage.

Abe, despite her long time abroad, is very much a Japanese artist. Additionally, in subtle fashion, she accommodates the past; her esthetic reaches back further than we might know. The lyric bent of her art, to some extent the result of glass regularly used, not only derives from her materials but also from the overall imaginative interest of her forms. 

One theme in art the Japanese are especially known for is nature. Tomoko continues in this tradition: the glassworks can look like branches on a tree. Or she will make glass versions of stones. Yet the art is contemporary–even if connections with the past exist, the artist’s exquisite interest in the natural world is visible. Maybe we are most accurate in describing Abe’s art as framed by the past but firmly in the present and aiming toward the future.

Artists have been living in an atmosphere of eclecticism so long, it is now very hard to determine their affiliations. We resort, for example, to generalizations regarding the cultures of East Asia: China, Korea, Japan. Yet profound differences exist among the three cultures. Abe belongs to Japan, a culture known for its high sensitivity in art, at least in its historical art. So her work does tend toward the expression of sympathy with natural circumstances . But some of the work, the glass panels on pedestals especially, can feel conceptual. Abe’s ideas, intuitive rather than analytic in nature, are embedded in her efforts. Throughout her career, Abe has never forgotten she is a sculptor who is working currently, even when she is quoting the past.

So, in a way, her work is a merger–of cultures, of materials, of ideas, of feelings. This leads to a complex array of motivations, as evidenced in the formally wide-ranging improvised forms she works with. At the same time, there is a strong affection for the latter–her home is very close to the Long Island Sound. Her work could even be considered local, in the sense Abe lives near Long Island Sound, whose visual life is often beautiful. But, in a larger way, her sensibility belongs to an Asian outlook–even if it is difficult to see in her very contemporary art.

Visual art is profoundly changing. Descriptions of flora and fauna, of the landscape as well, can appear sadly historical, in the sense that the world of flowers and trees, of lands and waters, has been severely damaged by the presence of industry. But, even so, we continue to need nature–for its beauty, for the ethical principles we generate from it, and for its support of the imagination. Nature is also important as a means of solace. In consequence, Abe’s insistence on the inspiration of her materials is both old and new. It is hoped the interview that follows will prove instructive in the way Abe thinks and how she makes things.

Crossing Borders – Human Nature, 2023. Glass, Pipes, Cotton Organza, Video projection. Each 65 x 28 x 8 inches (glass panel with stand)

One. As written in the introduction, you were born in Japan, studied in Edinburgh, and have lived in New York for a long time. How have these different places influenced your work?

Prior to graduating from the Edinburgh College of Art, I spent 10 years living in the West and 14 years in Japan. I went back and forth between the United States, Japan, and Britain.

I believe this background affected the way I see things. I was used to seeing things from an outsider’s point of view from a very young age.

I tended not to belong to a social group and was even bullied at times. This experience urged me to communicate with people around me using a non-verbal language. I see visual art as our universal language.

I think my strong interest in working with various materials is rooted in this experience as well. I felt an inner urge to want to know the unfamiliar nature of these materials and find resolution and beauty in the challenge of overcoming differences in the materials.

Two. You had two children, now grown. It is likely you were the primary parent responsible for their growth. Doing so must have cost you a lot of time. Did being a parent hinder you as an artist, or did it give you depth?

Bringing up my children and practicing art at the same time was certainly challenging. I was in my mid-twenties when I had my first child. I must admit it was very difficult not having the space and time to unleash my creative energy. But I don't regret my decision to focus on being a full-time mother for a few years. Doing so allowed me to understand where we come from and what we are. These years actually paid off in the end. When I resumed my artwork again, it felt like springtime – all the ideas and energy that had been dormant suddenly were awakened.

The idea for a piece called Blood to Milk was conceived while I was breastfeeding my child. I felt I was part of nature’s cycle of life. I wanted to make an artwork describing my experience: my blood turning to milk to nurture my child. I had this idea for years, but I was not able to realize it until I sent off my elder daughter to college. Suddenly, a vision of red glass turning to white and then transforming into wood came into my mind. I understood, then, that it can take years for an idea to come to full fruition.

Three. As a Japanese woman, you may well have found yourself at a distance from other artists in New York, primarily for cultural reasons.Yet you have had a career here. How do you feel about the differences between you and Americans? How did these differences manifest themselves?

I have always found myself seeing things from an outsider’s viewpoint, even in Japan. The only place I felt at home was in my art.

I felt I could communicate at a deeper level using my art, no matter where I was. I feel that the differences between people do not come so much from geographical or cultural distances. There are always differences and similarities between individuals and between cultures. For example, my interest in nature may be influenced by Japanese culture, but you could also say that nature

is the universal language for all of us. As the society we live in becomes more and more globally interconnected and cultural borders become blurrier, I do not intend my artworks to be seen as distinctively Japanese. My work reflects layers of my multi-cultural life. I may be subconsciously making things that could be perceived as belonging to several cultures at once.

Four. Please describe the thinking behind the glass panel works mounted on pipe construction. Explain, too, the kinds of imagery that exists on the glass panels and the cotton screens. Are they done with pencil or paint? Are they figurative or abstract, etc.?

Glass panels, with glass powder silkscreen printed onto them, are installed on top of a four- foot-tall pipe structure, referencing the construction site appearing in the video.

The silkscreen images on these glass panels are enlarged and distorted images of lava rocks and my hair. A contrasting sense of time is present, with lava being eternal and our hair and our body being ephemeral. In between the glass panels, cotton organza screens. stretched on pipe frames, are suspended from the ceiling.

Projected onto them are slide images taken in Tokyo in the Nineties, right after Japan’s bubble economy burst. These pictures alternate with imageries of water. The images appear on both sides of the panels. Because of the translucency of these materials, it is possible to see through the multiple overlapping imageries. There is no front or back to this installation, nor a chronological sense of time. The video on

the front is reversed in regard to the video on the back. A meeting point in time occurs: a wave meets a wave coming from the other end. The work is figurative because it refers to objects in the real world, but at the same time it is abstract since the images are withdrawn, distorted, and placed together to bring out a memory–a sense of time and space.

Five. Some of the pedestal pieces are placed alone, and some are placed together to form an installation. How do you see yourself–as an abstract or figurative artist? Does the question even apply?

Whether it is placed alone or in a group, a lot of my works have both figurative and abstract elements.

For example, the "Rocks and Rays" series were made by casting rocks I collected from the sea into glass sculpture using blow molds (molds that you blow glass into).

So, in a way, they are figurative representations of the rocks, but by inserting rods through the rocks one can start seeing the rods as rays of light and the rocks as symbolizing the eternity of time. I often create figurative pieces by casting, using photography in silkscreen or video, but they ultimately turn into something abstract.

Blood to Milk, 2019. Cast glass and wood
, 78 x 30 x 24 inches (detail)

Six. Your work with glass is remarkable. What is the inspiration for this work? When did you begin working in glass? What do its properties allow you to do?

Another glass piece in the earlier A.I.R. show is called Black to White, which is inspired by seeing my hair turning from black to white. It is the second in the series of works using wood and glass–the first, Blood to Milk, was about life: how we take part in nature’s cycle of life. But Black to White is about our mortality and beyond. In this work, a wooden branch hanging from the ceiling turns into black glass, then turns into white glass, and finally becomes a pool of milky glass on the floor. I see the work as if it were releasing its energy into a pool or feeding its energy back to the branch. One viewer’s remark shed a light from a different angle: she was reminded of a grafted tree, whose different species of branches collaborate in fact support the life of the tree. The comment was made by an adopted person; her experience influenced her reading. Glass is a translucent material; all kinds of colors are possible. It allows me to visually integrate materials seamlessly. 

Seven. To what extent does nature influence you? Do you find it in the local landscape, or do you want to reach out and back to traditional Japanese art?

Nature influences my work immensely, and I resource it mainly from the local landscape where I live. Growing up in Tokyo really made me crave nature.

Nature can be the most essential as well as the most fearful thing for humans. Nature directly affects us no matter where you live and, to me, is the universal language to talk about matters dear to us. It comments best on the issues affecting us in pressing times.

My most recent work, Tidal Crests, installed in Tokonoma at Sukodo, Old former school for Samurai children in Iga, features a video of seascapes projected onto a powder-printed glass sculpture resembling the moon. The video recording is of scenes from the Long Island Sound, very near where I live, in all weather conditions: sunny, windy, foggy, rainy, icy. The title of this work references a haiku by Basho Matsuo, a Japanese poet from the 17th century. The lyric reflects a sense of association across space and time:

full moon,

thrusting against my gate, tidal crests.

Researching this particular haiku, I came across an interview with Joji Yuasa, a renowned Japanese composer, who referenced this haiku. 

In the interview, Yuasa references this haiku of Basho’s and explains how his work reflects the world itself – rather than expressing his own emotions it “depicts the essence of the things that awaken his sensitivity and move his emotions.” 

This echoes the way I think about my work, and it may reflect our common heritage.  

Last Dive, 2023. Cyanotype and watercolor on Reeves paper, Laser cut Asuka paper, 44 x 30 inches

Eight. Some of the work seems to reflect a cultural bias toward New York City abstraction, especially of a minimalist sort. To what extent are you relying on current ideas and works in New York City?

While at the Edinburgh College of Art, I was influenced by ideas in minimalism, arte povera, and animism. I developed most of my works here by being true to my original interests, linked to a strong emphasis on materials. A.I.R. gallery membership and Residencies in other entities have introduced me to artists in New York, who use traditional materials in the most exciting ways. But I also appreciate living just outside of the city, close to nature. This allows me to notice subtle differences and changes in nature. I am inspired daily.

Nine. How has being Japanese affected the course of your career here? Is there now a Japanese art community in New York that would be of support? Do artists like Isamu Noguchi interest you? Or do they belong to another generation?

I have met many non-Japanese artists and curators who are interested in Japanese art and culture. I also met not only Japanese artists but artists from other Asian countries here, finding similarities and differences in our sensibilities. I am fortunate to have met people in New York naturally in this way. My life in art would have been different in Japan.

Although I have a great admiration for Isamu Noguchi's work, I never consciously thought of his work when I created my own. When I was an aspiring teenage artist, I met a textile artist in Japan named Nobutoshi Miyosawa. He and his artist friends showed me took me all over Japan, so that I could learn about the arts rooted in Japanese culture before I left for Edinburgh. Miyosawa also showed me the stone gardens often found behind Shinto shrines. This experience has remained with me. It has influenced me on an unconscious level. 

I now know that Noguchi's respect for nature, as well as for stones inhabited by living spirits, is derived from Shintoism. This is why I feel a strong connection with his work. Noguchi regarded his work as neither European nor Japanese. I quote: “I try to create forms which have a relevance to outer truth and space and to inner truth. We see the exterior of the tree and inwardly we see the sap rising. The forms I try to create are not merely the appearance but the resonating energy inside.”

Ten. Please name three women artists, not necessarily Japanese or contemporary, who have influenced you. How and why have they done so?

Judy Pfaff, Sarah Sze, Lee Bul. These are the three artists who have recently influenced my art. However, when I was studying art in the early Nineties, and was undecided about majoring in painting or sculpture, Eva Hesse's work made a great difference. Her example encouraged me to explore materials and create work that was, at the same time, flat and volumetric. When I listed the artists above, I see a lot of similarity between their art: architectural dimensions, a strong interest in materials, an emphasis on time and space through the use of light. I gravitate toward these artists because my own interests address these qualities.

Eleven. The art world has changed. It has become much more crowded, with not enough galleries, and ever shorter reviews. People don’t read about art anymore. How do you feel about these circumstances? 

Our lives are inseparable from social media today, and art is no exception. Our attention span seems to be becoming shorter and shorter. I sometimes deliberately create artworks that require the audience to spend the time to look and see–even if it does not catch their attention at once. Artworks created over a long time may also require a long time for the audience to take in–even sometimes days or months. If a piece is in your home, a totally different experience is afforded; a relationship between you and the work grows over time. This is different than walking quickly through a gallery or museum. People today are in need of this kind of “slow viewing.” We need to live with art. It is like being immersed in a Zen garden. In today’s competitive world, with its short attention span, a meditative spirit is necessary. I suspect that the same thing could be said about writings on art.

Rocks and Rays, 2022. Cast glass, glass rods. Size ranging 13 x 6 x 3 inches to 23 x 17 x 5 inches

Twelve. What are your plans for the future? Do you want a place in the mainstream? You are currently the president of A.I.R. Gallery, the woman’s non-profit space. Does a non-commercial space lead to extensive opportunities?

I do not specifically take interest in being in the mainstream. What is more important to me is for my art to live with people. I have always had a strong interest in working with architecture and have created large installations for hotels. If possible, I would like to see my work in hospitals and other places where people need art the most. My father and brother are doctors, and I hear from them that people need to be healed from within as much as from without. A.I.R. Gallery is a special place: members are not so much encouraged to sell but to be true to themselves. In addition to giving opportunities for women and non-binary artists, A.I.R. also organizes outreach educational programs, which I feel strongly about as an educator. In the future, I am interested in pursuing opportunities not only to show my art in non-traditional venues but also to share my vision and experience as an artist with a diverse audience.

Interviewer Jonathan Goodman works extensively with East Asian artists in New York. He has also traveled to East Asia (China and Korea) in search of greater accuracy in reporting on art from the area. He enjoys generating written interviews that give the artist a chance to shape his or her thought into a language of permanence. WM