Taiyo Okamoto
Multidisciplinary Artist | New York | www.taiyo-okamoto.com
Let go of invalid prejudices and make space within your consciousness. And in that space your unseen talent and possibilities will start to bloom as your consciousness transforms…
Liberating the true self is our universal theme. What happens if we remove and let go of the heavy armors of identity and anxiety, and return to our unshakeable axis? Taiyo Okamoto reimagines the traditional Japanese technique of chigiri-e to layer painted and textured paper into contemplative abstract patterns. Process becomes meditation; each paper sculpture a concrescence of time and the artist’s vital essence. Explorations of color theory, material-driven composition, the nature of water and documenting the transformation of his own body have led to several painting and photography series that consider many of the same processes. Everything becomes an experiment in transmuting a tender reality.
You can always find the key to open your secret talent within you. Don’t you want to evolve more creatively? I will share how spiritual practice and understanding the mechanism of consciousness transformed my creative work.
Taiyo Okamoto experiments through various media to transmute a tender reality.
About Taiyo Okamoto
Taiyo Okamoto reimagines the traditional Japanese technique of chigiri-e to deconstruct and layer painted and textured paper into contemplative abstract patterns. Liberating the true self is his universal theme. What happens when we remove and let go of the heavy armors of identity and anxiety, and return to our unshakeable axis? Process becomes meditation; each paper sculpture a concrescence of time and the artist’s vital essence. Working across mediums, explorations of color theory, material-driven composition, the nature of water and documenting the transformation of his own body have led to several painting and photography series, as well as a digital fashion collaboration with the design team NauGhTed, that consider many of the same practices. Everything becomes an experiment in transmuting a tender reality. Taiyo Okamoto grew up by the ocean in Karatsu, Japan, where he often spent his childhood days twilighting on the seawall; dreamily gazing at the vast sky, crashing waves, and flying fish. He has lived in New York City since 2002. Taiyo’s art has featured in exhibitions in New York, London and Taipei. He appears in the film "HANAGATAMI" directed by legendary Japanese filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi.
Eternity (2021)
132 x 56 in
Mixed media: watercolor on torn and sculpted paper, glue, on unstretched canvas
We live in a world of waves which is always flowing. Eternity. I wanted to express this on an 11-foot long canvas without any plan. I worked on it slowly; hand-painting, tearing, and sculpting each paper piece. It took one year to complete. It is my prayer.
The Zero Field (2019)
225.75 x 72 in, comprised of 129 streamers each measuring 1.75 x 72 in
Mixed media: Oil paint on torn paper, torn metallic mulberry paper, torn Inshu mulberry paper, glue, on paper
The Zero Field: a transcendental object suspended in space, an ethereal environment where we can remember and re- embody our true nature. Composed of over 30,000 hand-torn and sculpted pieces from paper painted by Ines Sun, it premiered as an interactive installation at Taipei's Suho Memorial Paper Museum.
Koko (2019)
Artwork & Direction: Taiyo Okamoto
Photo: Jeremy Torres
Model wears elements of The Zero Field
The Zero Field can transform its shape and function. The multivalent artwork was worn by several mixed-race models for a photoshoot. The colors merging with unbounded humans: no border, no division, no deficiency. The elements of the artwork become their scales, feathers, flower petals, waterfalls, particles of light…
The 10 x 10 Series (2017 - )
10 x 10 inch
Pulled mulberry paper glued on canvas
Rooted in a diaristic approach, each 10x10 work begins with a digital photo or documentation reference, related to the time of my experience. Through the foundation of chigiri-e and the translucent, sensitive mulberry paper I peel back a little piece of the so-called real world to reveal a hidden essence of the universe. Following the formal rules I’ve created to construct each piece, the colors blur and bizarrely pixelate the rigid reality, transforming it into something more meditative and ephemeral. A small window into a tender world.
Chigiri-e
Softly tearing delicate Inshu paper by hand,
outward forms fall away, underlying structures revealed.
Sculpting each piece, weaving them one by one, ambiguous daydreams emerge.
A universe of certainty and uncertainty, harmonizing synchronicities.
The act of tearing, sculpting and layering by hand each petal-shaped piece, one by one, allows a continuity of the mulberry paper’s natural fibrous edge. The energy in the hand — “the feeling of tearing” — imbues a soft warmth to the texture of the whole. The methodical repetition of the basic structural form creates a rule of symmetry: identically sized and shaped petals equidistant from each other. Each piece is produced in the same way, thus creating further connections to the natural world; recalling identical cells which multiply over and over to create new, larger, more dynamic forms.
The Sun Within (2020)
50 x 56 inch
Pulled mulberry paper glued on canvas
The Sun Within, therefore it is the light within. In the process of creating, I had the image of an explosion. However, as I sank deeper within myself in creation, the explosion turned into something else. A portal of healing sound.
Eschatologia (2015)
22 x 28 in
Pulled Inshu mulberry paper, origami paper, copper leaf on canvas
I was working on this piece during the first Black Lives Matter in 2014. I was questioning identity itself. I was feeling that if you have an unbending identity, you therefore create “others". I was wishing to shift to a more expanded world, harmony. The word Eschaton means the final event. I projected this girl onto it as a being who has come as a herald of the end of the cycle in which we now live. This piece featured as the cover art of the literary journal “The Pinch” in Spring 2021.
In the Shimmer (2021)
18 x 24 in
Acrylic in ionized water on canvas
Even though we live in a shimmering and magical world, how it responds changes depending on what we choose and want to experience. We can see what’s in front of us however we want. We all have that ability.
The Healer (2021)
Body Art & Photo: Taiyo Okamoto
I met Ayodeji for a photography project released exclusively on Instagram in the fall of 2021. During the photoshoot, I discovered scars on his back, remnants of the whipping he received in his home country Nigeria because of his sexuality. We call a person who heals somebody “healer”, however, I don’t know how it happened, but I felt a great healing energy from Ayo, as if his mission to heal himself had already been completed. Healing oneself is one of the most challenging lessons in life, more than healing somebody else.
Love (2023)
5 x 7 inch
Acrylic paint in ionized water on paper
As I encountered water in the process of opening to my natural self, it was inevitable that I’d start to incorporate it into my work. Its movement is unexpected: when wet, it displays a fascinating beauty; when it dries, its vividness becomes a small world of tenderness. The “Love” series is an experiment in which paint serves as the medium to observe the behavior of water. The works are documents of the expression of time, physics and the phenomenal earth.
Process of Love (2023)
Digital photography
Recently I’ve been working on a new series of water and paint works called “Love”. I call the series “Love” because I am creating them with the least human effort possible, and feel rather that they are given. Instead my focus has been more to observe how water behaves with time, gravity, and the medium of acrylic paint. And since I am working with water, the process itself is fluid: the water and paint showing different faces each second. With photography and videography I document those treasured moments which will never show in the completed work. We might not be able to tell a person’s small details and behaviors by just reading their history or memoirs which normally focus on what they did. But if there are photographs or videos we are able to cherish how they smile and close their eyes and feel sunshine. With that approach, “Process of Love” shows the tender moments in the making of the series “Love.”
Blue Toscana (2022)
Direction by Taiyo Okamoto
Photography by Joseph Reid
From 2021, I began deeply surrendering to who I am and focusing more on myself. I reconnected with the consciousness that I might not have tomorrow and started to express that through my body, with gratitude for all the experiences I’ve had in life. I questioned myself. “Would you rather stay being discreet or live with a sense of freedom?”
This has become the essence of a photography project “Blue Toscana” which is sensual, poetic yet playful. When I visited Italy in May I imagined we would have a photoshoot under the gorgeous Tuscan sun, and indeed the day of the shoot was very sunny. But as we arrived at the location by a lake we suddenly caught rain, therefore I incorporated that unexpected magic into this creation. The blue tone and monochrome gently realize the feeling of that day; the smell of wet grass, the light running through rain drops on olive trees.
“Blue Toscana” emanates that we can always find preciousness in this moment even if it doesn’t go along with our plans. We don’t know what happens in the next moment, but in this moment we are still breathing. Success and achievement were something we chose to pursue in the old era, but I’ve learned that everything is in this moment. Instead striving for life, it is something that we can sincerely fall in love with.
Taiyo Okamoto
Taiyo Okamoto grew up by the ocean in Karatsu, Japan, where he often spent his childhood days twilighting on the seawall; dreamily gazing at the vast sky, crashing waves, and flying fish. He has lived in New York City since 2002.
Working across mediums, Taiyo creates chigiri-e inspired paper art from small works to large installations, paintings, photography, digital art and writings.