Tanki

artist	奥山民枝　Okuyama Tamie
date	1996
materials	oil on canvas
size	130.5×97.0cm
commentary	A fiery sea of sunlit cloud fills the sky. The term “tanki” refers to the aura of early morning, and here Okuyama could be said to have captured that sliver of time when the world acquires color as night turns to day with the sunrise. Note though that this scene has not been rendered exactly as witnessed. The clouds take on uncanny forms, resembling waves, living organisms, or internal organs. Okuyama’s botanical and cloud motifs consistently project a peculiar eroticism suggestive of tactile softness. An artist who never stops thinking about how the world is made, Okuyama views humanity and nature as a continuum, and paints works that home in on natural mysteries and cosmic truths. (TH)
photo	斉藤新　Saito Arata

artist	Okuyama Tamie
born	1946
biography	Born in Niigata where her family had been wartime evacuees, Okuyama later moved to the capital. After graduating from the Tokyo University of the Arts Department of Crafts in 1969, she traveled to Spain as a scholarship student at the Royal Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Since her twenties she has traveled widely in Europe, the Middle East, North and South America, and Asia, producing oil paintings that evoke the mysteries of nature and the cosmos through elements such as mountains, clouds, and the sun. From 2005 to 2012 Okuyama taught at the Onomichi City University Faculty of Art and Culture. In 1992 she was awarded the 35th Yasui Prize, and in 2010, the Hiroshima Culture Prize. (TH)

奥山民枝