Tomomi Morishima
CV
*1984 | Paris, France |
2002–2006 | Painting, Tara College of Art, Tokio, Japan |
2006–2012 | Painting, Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe, Master student Prof. Helmut Dorner |
Lives and works in Karlsruhe |
Grants / Scholarships
2012 | Master student award, Freundeskreis der Kunstakademie Karlsruhe |
Solo exhibitions
2022 | Lichtung, Kunstverein Speyer | |
Purple Rain, Gray Kitchen, Karlsruhe | ||
2021 | Morishima / Sedelmeier, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart | |
Wandering Light, Galerie Frank Schlag & Cie., Essen | ||
2020 | Marco Faisst / Tomomi Morishima, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart | |
2019 | Swell, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart | |
2018 | PETAL - fragments as a partial whole, Galerie Frank Schlag & Cie., Essen | |
2017 | Tomomi Morishima, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart | |
2016 | Tomomi Morishima, Ecke Galerie, Augsburg | |
2015 | Unknown Flower, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart | |
Dickicht, Galerie Frank Schlag & Cie., Essen | ||
2014 | Gleam, MMProjects, Karlsruhe | |
Blue, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart | ||
2013 | Tomomi Morishima, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie Campus Nord, Karlsruhe | |
2012 | Tomomi Morishima, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart | |
2011 | Afterglow, Galerie Frank Schlag & Cie., Essen | |
2011 | Tomomi Morishima, Martin Mertens, Berlin | |
2009 | postcards, bei Alice Cavoukdjian dite Galli & Dr. Bernhard Serexhe, Karlsruhe |
Group exhibitions
2023 | New Friends In Color, Evelyn Drewes | Galerie |
2018 | Wohin das Auge reicht / Neue Einblicke in die Sammlung Würth, Kunsthalle Würth, Schwäbisch Hall |
2017 | Acchrochage, Galerie Frank Schlag & Cie., Essen |
2015 | GLOBALE: GLOBAL CONTROL AND CENSORSHIP, ZKM Karlsruhe |
22. Karlsruher Künstlermesse, Karlsruhe | |
OLOHUONENÄYTTELY, Helsinki, Finland | |
Latsch mir nicht in die Kiste, da ist der Theodolit drin!, Luis Leu, Karlsruhe | |
2014 | Das Obere des Körpers, Galerie Frank Schlag & Cie., Essen |
2013 | Meisterschüler/innen in Weinheim, Kunstförderverein Weinheim e.V., Weinheim |
Contemporary Art from China, Japan, Korea, Galerie Frank Schlag & Cie., Essen | |
Jonas Fleckenstein, Tomomi Morishima, Oliver Schuss, MMProjects, Karlsruhe | |
2012 | TOP12, Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe |
Off Space #4: 17 x 8, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe | |
2010 | Passage, Meyer Riegger, Karlsruhe |
1st SHOW, Strzelski Galerie, Stuttgart | |
Cocktail, Galerie Frank Schlag & Cie, Essen | |
Enovos Junge Kunst, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen | |
2009 | artscoutone, Mannheim |
hako, Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe |
Clearance
Tomomi Morishima does not tell stories, but hands the viewer compositions of the elements architecture, landscape and figure, which are left to generous interpretation. An alternation of color surfaces and empty spaces result in a very airy, surreal pictorial space of vibrating color splashes and flowing planes. Bordering on the abstract, a mix of construction and organic painting creates a corridor with considerable pull. The viewer is invited into the picture; he can literally enter Morishima's pictorial world. In the center of the picture there is often a human being. But shimmering elements that dynamize the pictorial space have to be traversed in order to reach him. In the midst of the complex multi-part compositions, the depicted human being acts as a stand-in for the human being itself. For a conditio humana. For man in his biotope, so to speak.
The time factor also plays a formative role in Morishima's works: In the landscape paintings, elements that lie behind a superficial pictorial plane seem to belong to a past time. Playing with the dimensions of time is a prominent feature of Morishima's painting. It is not a matter of linear extensions, i.e. not a mere memory, but rather a memory of the future or an inkling of the past. There is no linear time axis in these paintings, rather a surreal one.
This shimmering, billowing cosmos is given its static quality by architectural interventions: frame-like constructions demarcate central pictorial contents from peripheral ones. Often these enclosures frame a figure. These human figures are usually seen from the back, as if they were taking leave of the viewer, of the picture plane, of the present. But they do not do that. On the contrary, they invite the viewer to follow them. They go into the depths of the picture in order to discover something there. But what there is to discover remains constantly in the balance. What remains is a riddle of the most delightful kind, which neither the viewers nor the artist himself can fathom completely. Morishima's large-format paintings are not only open in the best sense, they are open-ended.
As open-ended as the painter's working process: he begins with a few drops of liquid paint on an empty canvas. Abstract forms emerge from this, but they already offer many hints and associations. By reacting to these signals, the painting takes on concrete form as it progresses. Only through this careful procedure of a cautious approach does the painter arrive at a pictorial space that is a permanent lock, a place of perpetual transition. Starting point and destination are irrelevant here, what counts is the transition. Yes, Morishima does not tell stories, he only evokes them. For it is the viewers who begin to tell stories when they see his painting.
Tomomi Morishima was born in Paris in 1984. During childhood and adolescence he lived in Hiroshima. He continued his art studies, which he began in Tokyo in 2002, with Prof. Helmut Dorner in Karlsruhe from 2006. In 2012 he received the Master Student Award of the Friends of the Karlsruhe Art Academy. Today he lives and works in Karlsruhe.
Hansjörg Fröhlich