Naho Ito

Profile

Naho Ito creates organic contemporary Japanese artwork that capture an immensely unique imaginary.
Using her fingers, Ito creates works that simultaneously pay homage to traditional techniques and colour and convey the artist’s deep and often unexpected emotions. Her tactile process means she connects directly with her creative medium, thus ensuring that we, as the viewers, can appreciate each pigment’s depth and character.

Ito specialises in Nihonga— a traditional Japanese technique that has been used for centuries. Nihonga makes use of various organic materials to create natural pigments — the most common of which is “iwa-enogu (lit. “rock-paint”). Iwa-enogu are made by drawing colour from soil, minerals, shells of oysters and clams, and other elements with earthy and grainy textures.

Nihonga is an inherently delicate technique. Ito mixes each element with resin or glue using her fingers before carefully pasting it onto handmade hemp or Japanese mulberry paper to create her work. Though hand-made, the paper is resistant to the water, glue and resin involved in the painting process. Instead, it becomes an active participant in the creation of Ito’s work — almost as if the mineral pigments and paper are in conversation with one another, resulting in new, unexpected transformations created by the paper and pigment together. Ito uses her creative process to delve deeper into what she calls the “language of hope” belonging to her pigment, paper and tools.

Artist Statement

When I paint, I reflect on a shivering that humans long, long ago felt from their subconscious. That shiver forced them to utter words that did not yet have meaning: transforming them first into a person and then an individual. I want to reconnect with that shivering sensation from where we are now.
I start painting a picture by drawing lines and colouring with water. I don’t set out to draw a grand story, a firm image, or introduce any personal claims or messages. I feel there is nothing definitive in this world: just as there is not just one path to anywhere, everything intertwines in this world full of contradictions and is constantly in motion.

I try to depict the tension of a moment when various incompatible things, acceptable things, familiar things, unfamiliar things, and things that appear similar but are completely different acknowledge one other while retaining their individuality — without ever abandoning those contradictions.

I think these contradictions retain a certain nobility similar to that first shivering. And in that gap, light can be glimpsed. That is the kind of painting I want to create.