[Solo Exhibition] Natsumi Tomita "Straphanging Days" @ Galerie Tokyo Humanité

Natsumi Tomita

Natsumi Tomita, who was also featured in the recent “On the Eve of a Breakthrough” exhibition.

https://art-on.jp/break-zenya-part2/

Hearing that she was holding a solo show with an interesting angle, I went to see it. The venue is the Kyobashi gallery “Galerie Tokyo Humanité.”

Straphanging Days

The moment you step into the gallery, you are enveloped in a completely otherworldly space. Yes — every one of the three-dimensional works is dangling from a train strap. It’s a decidedly uncanny atmosphere.

The works are monochrome, and the gallery walls are white too, so even shooting in color yields a monochrome world. Your vision is steeped in monochrome, leaving you with nothing but the sensation of tripping into another world.

〈Artist’s Comment〉
I have long felt that the inside of a train is a strange space where strangers are packed into the same place, each retreating into their own world and paying no attention to one another, and I have often taken it as a theme for my work. Sitting in a train seat, I gaze at the person who comes to stand before me and let my imagination run — guessing what sort of person they might be from their clothes, their belongings, their expression. Realizing that I, too, am part of that crowd of strangers, I find it fascinating.

I have shown figurative works made from newspaper articles before, but this is my first time working in monochrome. I would be delighted if, through the figures floating in the gallery, you could sense the peculiar, mysterious atmosphere of the inside of a train.

On the walls of the venue is posted a “list of works” — not so much a roster of people — like the one below.

Each character work appears to have been given its own personal name.

The title of the show uses “nakazuri” (the hanging advertisements inside a train car) rather than “chūzuri” (suspended in mid-air) — perhaps a nod to those in-car hanging ads. Seventeen distinctive characters hang there, each in its own posture, gripping a strap.

Look closely and you’ll see that each character has articles related to them pasted on. Yes — newspaper!

Their expressions are realistic too, distinctive and comical.

These 17 figures cover nearly every type of person we see inside a train car. Perhaps the interpretation is that the elderly are seated, because there was no work of an old person gripping a strap.

“Remi Hosokawa,” who looks like a pretty office worker, is amusing too, her looks rendered in a subtly off way.

“Hiroo Tsukada,” who evokes exhaustion and fatigue. For any salaryman, it’s a work that hits close to home.

Today’s high school girls grip their smartphones firmly in one hand.

Metal Works

Her animal objets that make use of scrap materials are a popular series. As for how the works were selling, these ones were doing better. Then again, displaying the strap-hanging works does seem rather difficult.

Summary

This exhibition consisted entirely of three-dimensional works, but Natsumi Tomita’s background is as a graduate of the Oil Painting course at Tama Art University. Seeing the expressive power with which she crafts the faces of the strap-hanging works, my interest extends to her two-dimensional works as well.

This solo show flipped a switch in my brain over into another dimension. I had the experience of being neatly caught in a trap. Wonderful stuff!