Toshiko Oiyama: A Scoop of Mist

Artist’s statement

As the mist moves in, the clump of trees I know well recedes and becomes something unfamiliar. Time passes. When the sun takes over, the trees have changed somewhat and so have I. It takes so little to make one realize that all is passing, transient. 

For me, drawing is a way to ask questions. One question I have been asking is what it means for all things to be in the state of transience. Observing the mist, rain, hail, fog, snow and ice, I draw and experiment to ask that question. 

The multi-panel format that I am using is one such experimentation. Drawings turn into something different visually in response to the adjacent drawings. It is as if by juxtaposing unrelated drawings one can start a conversation between them.

The sudden blocking of an image with a black panel is another. The abyss, or the possibility of another world, another way of seeing, is always with us. Mixing charcoal and ink, the figurative and abstract, large and small, I invite happy accidents while experimenting. I draw and ask my question, in search of the answer that is not likely to be found. 

Ever and ever he [Time] finds a way, as the snow falls, 

As the rain falls, hail on the fleece, as the vale mist rides

Through the haygold stalls, as the dew falls on the win-

Milled dust of the apple tree and the pounded islands

Of the morning leaves…

--- Dylan Thomas, from “In country sleep”