In the summer of 2010, I encountered Takashi Tomooka’s photographs.
Only the essence of flowers remained on the pristine photographic paper,
and I felt as if I had touched upon the refined Japanese aesthetic.
These were Japanese paintings rendered not with a brush, but with a digital camera.
His absolute sense of beauty, incorporating the golden ratio and the uniquely Japanese silver ratio, resembled Rimpa-style paintings,
which we then transferred to washi paper and crafted into hanging scrolls, framed pieces, and folding screens.
In 2012, during his first solo exhibition at Ippodo New York, his work caught the eye of Ms. Deborah, the director of the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego.
She highly praised Tomooka's photographs, and they were acquired by the museum, instantly becoming museum pieces.
Takashi Tomooka is a Cinderella boy.
Ms. Deborah has once again provided a written statement for us.
Keiko Aono, Ippodo
