Broken heels, crumpled sheets, unfinished wine: Controversial paintings by a Japanese artist about a woman's share

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The paintings of the Japanese artist (Tomona Matsukawa) breathe sadness, longing and nostalgia. She creates an atmosphere where tired girls, whose faces are hidden by a veil of hair or the "shadow" of hands, plunge into melancholy, forgetting about everything in the world, and old things and decrepit objects, turning into storytellers, tell about people who throughout contacting with them, they left a piece of themselves in the form of red shoes with knocked down heels or a trace of lipstick on a cigarette filter.

At first glance, one gets the impression that all the author's works are sheer hopelessness and doom, but this is not so. Her work is a message that shows a person's life, his style and way of life.

Sometimes things, objects and some insignificant details can tell a lot: two glasses of unfinished wine indicate that perhaps the evening was not a success and the companion simply left, leaving behind a light trail of the subtle aroma of expensive perfume, but if you look at this picture once again, you see everything in a different light, catching yourself thinking that everything happened exactly as it was originally intended.

Red shoes with knocked down heels, broadcast that their owner is a windy and frivolous person, she loved to burn her life in clubs and at parties surrounded by men, and nails with erased varnish on the tips only hint that the girl was too tired, completely giving yourself to work. Coffee stains on a colored silk dress can be easily confused with blood, who knows, maybe she was hit in the face, breaking her nose, or she was still so clumsy that she managed to splash a hot drink …

Tomona does not try to embellish reality, making the heroines of her works better than they are. On the contrary, it shows that the world and the people in it are far from ideal, because everyone has their own fears, princes, desires and vices. She paints scars on the bodies of young girls, making the viewer wonder how, when and how they were obtained and why none of them has yet got rid of the uneven lines on the skin. Just as crumpled sheets and things scattered around the apartment make one get lost in guesses, stirring up fantasy, curiosity and imagination.

Eighteen year old. Her sensual paintings with languid female images are spreading all over the world, replenishing the collections of connoisseurs of beauty, who, by the way, are not at all averse to shelling out a tidy sum for one such work.