FUMIKO AMANO
Murnau Art Gallery
(Seville) is proud to announce FUMIKO AMANO´S first solo
show in Spain.
Japanese-born FUMIKO
AMANO lives and works in Los Angeles.
Her work is inspired by sound. Growing up in smoggy Tokyo during
the 70s,
Amano is adept at decoding the sonic landscape of large urban areas
(traffic,
sirens, trains), and is somehow able to transform these sounds into
color. She began taking piano lessons at
the age of
three, and feels that classical music has provided a sound structure
that helps
her interpret industrial sounds and transfer what she hears onto her
canvases.
Fumiko Amano’s
varied experiences add depth to her
work: her world travels, multi-cultural
background, and her studies of literature, music, theater, fashion
design,
film, poetry, visual arts and fine arts.
Although her work is abstract, the title of each series provides
clues
as to what the artist is trying to convey. For
example, Amano’s “Downtown Series” shows that she is able to find
beauty in
L.A.´s skyscrapers. What some might
consider a gray, over-populated, grimy area, she translates into a
magical
array of multi-colored forms that can be easily identified as
buildings. Amano´s
delightful watercolors titled “Kyoto Garden
Series” transmit peace and tranquility, whereas “Dream Series”, using
mixed
media techniques that often include Japanese comics, makes us wonder
what
subconscious images led her to create each piece.
Peter Frank explains
Amano’s work in the catalog text
by saying: “Amano has long painted
gesturally – and has long let the world into those gestures. Recently, the gestures themselves have become
more organic… (and) more kinetic-seeming, less and less the record of
her hand
in motion and more and more the image of something moving independently
of her
gestures.” According to Frank, Amano’s
paintings are about “everything at once”, and “what enters all our
senses”. He claims Amano can transform
“the immobile animate into the animated animate”, bringing everything
to life. Thus the title of this show: “Everything is Alive”.
Amano’s solo show includes 9 canvases, 12 works on panel, and 6 pieces on paper.