One's Native 1984

Toko Shinoda made *One’s Native* using ink to conjure forth these elemental forms. Imagine Shinoda with her brush, poised, then swooping down to make that delicious grey stroke that begins at the bottom. It’s almost like she's pulling something up from the depths, right? You can feel her confidence in the sureness of line, yet there’s also vulnerability in its wavering thinness, the kind of mark that can only come from a human hand. And that solid black rectangle – what’s that about? Maybe it represents the stability of tradition against the dynamism of feeling. It reminds me a bit of Franz Kline, but with a Japanese sensibility. I imagine the artist would have been in conversation with so many abstract painters, each trying to find their own way of marking the void. It’s like she’s saying, “This is me, this is where I come from.” We are all native to our own experience.