Tomoko Nagao has always worked with a double language, pictorial and graphic, that is strongly influenced by the "superflat" aesthetic of the school of Murakami and Nara, with original takes on the choice of subjects (often linked to environmental and anti - consumerist themes), and a constant practice of ironic revisiting of themes and subjects taken from the great Western pictorial tradition on the one hand, and from popular iconography both Western and Eastern, on the other.
Tomoko Nagao
Artists
In her great compositions the brands of the big multinationals are often present, associated with telluric or seismic phenomena, a reference to the iconography of traditional Japanese painting, such as Okusai's big wave, an ironic - pop review by the artist in contrast with the neo - capitalist aesthetic.
The iconography to which her works refer reflect the influences of manga culture, with a glance towards ancient Japanese tradition, with a neopop sensibility.
For Galleria Vik Milano, Tomoko has created a large Medusa’s head on the wall of her room, using the stencil technique, a typical subject of western Renaissance and Baroque painting, but revisited in a pop key; while on the bathroom mirror stands a series of small anthropomorphic drops of water, like little cartoon characters, created in collaboration with the ceramist Mariavera Chiari, which seem to swim in the space around the viewer.
Tomoko Nagao was born in 1976 in Nagoya, Japan and is one of the main contemporary artists of Micropop art. She studied in Japan assimilating Takashi Murakami's Superflat style and Nara Yoshitomo's stylised large - eyed figures. In London she attended the Chelsea Colleg e of Art. Today, she lives and works in Milan.
As the postmodern Japanese art movement founded by Takashi Murakami, her artworks are characterized by flat and emphatic images and defined outlines. She has exhibited in numerous exhibitions and fairs all over the world, from Milan (Palazzo Reale), to Tokyo and Hong Kong.
In September 2015, her "Botticelli - The Birth of Venus with Baci" was exhibited at the Gemalde Galllery in Berlin and, in 2016, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London at the "The Bott icelli Renaissance group show," where it was considered by the critics to be one of the more interesting events of that year