TOMO MORI'S expressions of serenity
Interview by Deborah Oster Pannell
I initially encountered Tomo Mori’s work at Flux Art Fair in 2015, the first large-scale international art fair inspired by and in honor of Harlem, a neighborhood with its own, rich cultural history. Her intricately constructed, multi-colored collages made of painted canvas squares captivated and transported me with their simultaneous complexity and delicacy. Over the next few years, we gradually got to know one another, in between me writing about or curating her work. By now an established member of Manhattan’s diverse uptown art scene, with a number of public commissions to her credit, Mori’s colorful, abstract meditations on interrelatedness reflect a deep commitment to healing, as they explore the very foundations of personal identity and belonging during years of increasing global upheaval.
As Tomo’s creative practice has evolved through mosaic-like expressions of serenity flowing through joy or revealing grief, into an exploration of three-dimensional, handmade rope sculptures, I have come to understand and appreciate the deeper significance of her practice as a tool of reconciliation with past and present imbalances. To me, her two-dimensional work operates on a deeply visceral level, ranging from monochromatic constructions that conjure soothing vistas and internal landscapes to collages of potent, multi-colored squares that might represent anything from deconstructed overhead maps or waterfalls of memory, to pixelated impressions of music. Her more recent sculptural rope work offers a more literal embodiment of intertwining forces, incorporating patterns and textures from across time and space, conjuring the possibilities for inter-categorical cooperation, or at least co-existence.
You’ve said that two central themes in your current artwork are harmony in co-existence and healing. These are both inherent in your rope work, which weaves together strands of fabric, patterns and cultural iconography in a harmonious fashion that demonstrates the strength and complexity of human connections. I’d say that this body of work is a reflection of the challenges we face as human beings, as well as a metaphor for imaginative solutions. Can you speak to this?
Yes, my work starts with some level of darkness, then in the process it searches for harmony, healing and hope. Maybe the act of my artmaking is similar to a ritual or a prayer. In a place like NYC, many of us live right next to people from different cultures. Some of us find a common ground and enjoy shared moments, and some just stay in a sort of parallel world, while unfortunately some choose not to respect each other at all. I experience all of these on a day to day basis, as an Asian mother in Harlem. And, beyond my personal experience, the more I see the suffering in society, my work becomes charged with the desire to repair broken emotions.
One of the metaphors is the rope making process, itself. To weave a rope, you twist one thread outward, bring it forward and repeat. Two opposite forces give strength when woven together. Another metaphor for solutions is that I can always arrive at the destination of beauty even if I mix up all the fabric patterns into one piece of artwork.
I also find comfort seeing fabric patterns from all over the world. It’s proof that humans always desire to enrich their lives. We wear clothes to protect our body, but why color, why patterns? I see stories of celebration, pride, and very often, appreciation for mother nature. There are many similarities in the motifs, although the style and expressions can be very different.
“Songs of Our Ancestors 3,” 2021. 40” x 40”. Acrylic, vintage and donated fabric scraps
The first work of yours I got to know was called “Black Sheep,” which I encountered at the Flux Art Fair in Harlem, in 2015. Looking at this collage painting, I actually fell into a trance, mesmerized by what I experienced as an energetic flow, deconstructed and broken down to its primary emotional elements. Having such an extremely visceral initial reaction to your work, I felt, and still do, that you pour so much of your soul into your work, that you speak through it, even if it’s not in words, and people can feel this. Are you aware of this power?
“Tears of a Blacksheep” was a self-portrait. I am a black sheep. Since age sixteen I have strived in this foreign land without the protections of my family, because I chose to leave them due to childhood trauma and chronic sexism in Japan. There I had my freedom, but the young girl alone made many mistakes and constantly failed and cried hard like a waterfall. I knew my tears were pure, because I fought honest fights. Crying detoxed negative thoughts and renewed my energy to get back in the game the next day.
When I was working on the piece, I had no idea how people would see this painting. But I understand now why you felt it internally, because you probably have also been in the quiet place to recover your soul.
“Tears of a Black Sheep,” 2013. 36” x 48”. Acrylic, canvas fabric collage
You’ve spoken before about your background doing design work in a corporate media environment. Are there aspects of that experience that influenced you later on, when you began communicating your own stories and impressions through a series of chosen mediums? Were there any habits or patterns you had to change when you made the shift from doing work for hire to acting on your own inspiration?
After I graduated from my art school in Atlanta, I worked as a graphic designer for major news media. One of my childhood dreams was to see the world, and eleven years in domestic, international and financial news did show me a great amount of it. But it was an emotionally tough job for me because 90% of what comes in the newswire is someone’s hardships, like natural disasters, wars, terrorism, inequality, corruption, murders, non-stop 24/7. In those years I started to think about what can heal survivors' minds, how people can stop the negative cycle, and I reflected on my own life affected by my father’s war experience.
Also, I spent all day staring at digital pixels and those aggregated tiny squares; the current instrument of recording visual memories became how I see many things around us, zooming in and out of reality and memory, as organic cell structure. That is why I chose mosaic-like collages.
“Songs of Eternity,” 2021. 40” x 40”. Acrylic, vintage and donated fabric scraps
What’s been your favorite public commission so far, and why?
I have two.
One is “The Wheels on the Bus,” MTA Manhattanville Bus Depot (2018). It was an amazing experience to create a permanent public art installation. I focused on the community and the bus depot employees’ daily effort to be more recognized as part of the momentum of the community. The wheels on the bus carry our dreams everyday.
“This Life Given” at Governors Island was executed as I visualized what my time travel would look like in a 360 degree space. Grandmas and Great Grandmas of my daughter’s ancestry rooted in Asia, Africa, Caribbean, Europe, Middle East and Native America were surrounding my daughter’s portrait like guardian angels, and the thousands of moments in time were represented as fabric mosaics all around the space. Visitors shared their stories of their own ancestors with me, and I was happy to see my installation triggered their time travel and realization that our existence today is a miracle of the ancestors’ survival.
“The Wheels on the Bus” (2018) © Tomo Mori, NYCT Manhattanville Bus Depot. Commissioned by Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts & Design. Photo: Filip Wolak. Laminated glass fabricated by Glasmelarei Peters Studio and metal sculpture by Art Metal Industries.
“This Life Given,” 2019. 360-degree mural at Governors Island. Fabric scraps, indoor paint, acrylic paint/medium, wood frames.
I’m sure you have many, but do you have one particularly pressing dream project that keeps you awake at night?
Yes, I have many. At this moment in particular, I would like to create a very large installation with ropes in a historical space interplaying with architectural elements. Earlier this summer, I was a part of this group show in Beacon, NY, in a historical building called Howland Cultural Center. The exhibition gave me some inspiration.
I also would like to do an interactive installation in a space where children are inspired to create a part of a large sculpture and adults can be children again.
Howland Culture Center, Asian American Heritage Month Exhibition, “East to Perform”. Photo/Curator: Hoodie Crescent. Beacon, NY. 2021
In the years since I first encountered and exhibited your work, I’ve recognized a steady and progressive evolution in both the content and material presentation of your work. I’ve watched you use small squares of painted canvas to create mosaic-like collages that played with the raw dynamics of colors and how they interact with one another. The almost organic relationships you embodied in your designs led you to then explore the dimensionality of fabric patterns - their geometric designs and cultural iconography, and the layers of history they carried within them. In some of your recent pieces, you’ve injected another layer of dimensionality into these creations by imagining them as overhead maps. Can you talk a little more about this new direction and its significance?
I have been friends with geometry since my news media years. Actually, my first year in the newsroom I was making maps all day. Most of my images come to me in between sleep and waking up. Lately I must be feeling the need to fill the divisions made worse in the Trump era, as one morning I saw an image of little pieces coming together to fill a gap. So I did a few paintings with the theme of Filling the Gap.
Then in those paintings, I saw a coastline landscape. Because those mosaic-like squares made the coastline look half man-made like ports, the association reminded me about a conversation I had with a stranger in Cartagena, Colombia ten years ago about the ports of Panama and Cartagena. That inspired me to do a series of sets of two historical ports, or personal connections. I would like to do about six more sets to complete this series.
“Port: Cartagena”, 2021. 13x19 inch. Painted canvas fabric on a canvas sheet, acrylic paint/medium
“Port: Panama”, 2021. 13x19 inch. Painted canvas fabric on a canvas sheet, acrylic paint/medium
At a time when “the personal is political” has become a way of life for almost everyone, how do you translate the experience of being simultaneously an Asian-American woman, a mother, a wife and a Harlemite into some kind of energy that feeds your creative flow?
I have been experiencing verbal harassment on the street quite often now with the pandemic. What hurts me the most is to know that my bi-racial daughter is seeing her mother getting attacked. Earlier this summer I sank to the bottom of my confidence about living in my neighborhood.
But the truth is, there are more supportive people. If there were microaggressions, there are micro-healings, too. The father of my daughter’s classmate who walked with me to or from school. Just the 10 minute walk healed my broken heart. There were many friends who sincerely listened to what I needed to express. I consciously tried to focus on that supportive energy by joining many discussion groups on Zoom to discuss short-term and long-term solutions to battle against hate crimes. Actually, this is the first time I learned about various immigration histories and connected with the Asian American community in a very intimate sense. All those things were micro-healing.
The experience of being in this vulnerable position confirmed the role of my artwork. In the world of conceptual art, many works have strong direct political messages. My work exists to heal after hours of our daily challenges. They are not screaming, not questioning uncomfortable matters, not being sarcastic, just allowing you to listen to yourself calmly as if you are in nature or listening to good music.
We live in a time when the hegemony of many dualities are breaking down, as we grapple with the need to create balance out of generations of systemic oppression and inequality. Of course, the Black Lives Matter Movement looms large in current rising consciousness, as does an increased awareness of anti-Asian sentiment that has been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. With so much cultural, political and environmental upheaval unfolding all around us, how do you see your role as an artist?
At this moment I’m choosing not to use my art as a form of activism. I respect and appreciate many brilliantly done activist works, but to be in the mindset of combating social issues all day, I’m afraid my hyper-sensitive brain might take me somewhere very dark. I have to protect my mental health because I’m raising a child who is also very sensitive.
But outside of my own art practice, I do speak out as a mother who feels responsible to guide future generations. Last summer as we were all staying home, I spent time diving deeper into Black History and current issues, hearing the voices of BLM and friends, then moved onto world history and various immigrant histories in the US, because I needed to have more well-rounded knowledge to join the conversation about racism and colonialism.
It was impressive to see so many people speaking out, especially Asian Americans who I have never seen speaking out like this until last summer. But at the same time, I also observed that their voices do not get heard outside of their own groups as much as they should.
Not just related to Asian Americans, but for discrimination against anyone, if people from outside of your group don’t recognize the issues and support the change, it’s hard to make any real progress for the future. I feel the conversations should be happening in more inclusive, multidimensional ways, and people should listen to each other more carefully.
In some ways and on some levels we’ve all spent time focusing on racism this past year more than ever before, And clearly, the world needed it. At the same time, I miss not thinking about race all the time. Music and art can unite people in magical ways, and as a creator I want to keep making my art and being a part of the community creating a space where people can come together.
You’ve been evolving your practice to include the creation of handmade ropes from recycled fabrics, and now you are thinking of experimenting with printing your own patterns. Tell us about the new directions you are currently exploring, and where you might see yourself experimenting in the future.
In early 2020, I installed a large pelvis shaped sculpture with ropes in a Chashama space on E 64th Street. The next project with rope planned for an exhibition in a college gallery will be even larger. As the ropes get bigger and thicker, I see the opportunity to include details with more narratives into the rope itself. I’m visualizing including some photographic images among traditional patterns utilizing printmaking techniques. I’m also experimenting with painting or printing my own patterns for both collage and rope installation works. There are so many things I want to try. It may not be a smart choice to add more steps to my already labor intensive process, but I can not stop. Life is too short.
“Eve”, 2020. 6 x 8.5 x 3 feet. Discarded fabric, wire. Photo: Johannes Berg
Currently on view: The Summer Salon, Harlem, NYC - Tomo Mori and Reuben Sinha, curated by Connie Lee. Contact connieleecdg@gmail.com for an appointment. Proof of vaccination is required for visit.
Upcoming: October 19 - November 28, 2021 — “Up Close,” Capucine Bourcart & Tomo Mori. JVS Project Space 181 East 108th Street, East Harlem, New York.
View more of Tomo’s work on her site and Instagram.
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Deborah Oster Pannell is a writer, editor, musician, and arts producer. She has curated and performed at KGB Bar, Animamus Art Salon, Shag, Green Oasis Community Garden, Chinatown Soup, The Red Room at KGB, UNDER St. Marks Theater, JCC Harlem, and The Yard: Williamsburg Bridge, where she was the inaugural resident art curator from 2018-2019. She has written numerous online articles and interviews, edited museum catalogs, edited and written introductions for several books, and her essay was featured in the award-winning anthology, We Got This — Solo Mom Stories of Grit, Heart, and Humor. She is currently the Gallery Manager at C24 Gallery in Chelsea, where she helps produce and promote a diverse, international curatorial program that champions emerging, underrepresented and marginalized artists.
