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Tamiko Kawata

Pantyhose Fall

Tamiko Kawata 3

source: highlike

Work: It is the 7th installation work from my continuing series of Passing Life, to show the accumulation of our daily waste material. The form embodies our lives as a stream of flowing river. It is a site-specific installation work created for Rockland Center for the Arts, West Nyack, NY in 2014 for the occasion of exhibition “Bricolage”. This work shows the accumulation of about 1,000 pairs of used pantyhose I have collected in past few years. I was surprised that many people have been saving them and they were glad to be used in art form.
Dimension: 14’H x 12’W x 5’D Medium: Used pantyhose, wood, bracket.
Photographer: George Pejoves
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source: tamikokawata

Through my artwork, I am searching for another vision and another way of thinking for my life. I like to use overlooked indigenous objects from our daily life for my medium. Discarded materials are important to me not only for environmental issues but also to reflect my current life. My choice of materials and interpretation are influenced by the differences that I experience between life in America and Japan where I grew up.

“Dadaism” and “Assemblage,” these radical philosophies were perfect to affect the wounded Japanese youth in post World War II. I grew up watching them in my forming years in Japan, and these philosophies became a foundation for my way of thinking and for my art making direction.

My works are personal; I work in large and small scales in belief of intimacy. They are my visual diaries.
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source: collectionsmadmuseum

Tamiko Kawata was born in Kobe, Japan. She trained to be a sculptor at Tokyo University and then went on to study glass. In 1961, she moved to New York, hoping to work in glass but soon learned that fine glass designs were largely imported into the United States from other countries. She then discovered the safety pin as material for her design work, and this object would launch her career in America.

In 2006, Tamiko Kawata received a Pollack-Krasner Foundation grant. She has participated in numerous exhibitions, including a solo show at the Hudson Guild Gallery, New York in 2003. Her work can be found in the collections of LongHouse Reserve, New York; Lloyd Casten Collection, California; Jack Lenor Larsen Collection, New York; and Buenno Premesela Art Collection, Holland.