By Land, Sea, Myth, and Imperialist Greed
UC Santa Barbara AD&A Museum Showcases Acquisition of Art by Important Japanese Artist Tomiyama Taeko, Critical of Her Homeland’s Imperialist Legacies
On the rich and inviting face of it, the art of Tomiyama Taeko, the important but underappreciated Japanese artist who lived from 1921 to 2021, seduces the eye and imagination with its elaborate and fantastical iconography. Looking and seeing her art is its own reward.
But, as seen in the fascinating exhibition at UCSB AD&A Museum, Tomiyama Taeko: A Tale of Sea Wanderers, beyond her focus on the “other” worlds of puppetry, mythology, and undersea surrealist vision, the artist’s underlying concern for real-world issues, including environmental alarm. More specifically, Taeko, born in Japan but raised in China before returning for art studies, often folds into her work a passionate and critical indictment of Japan’s harsh imperialist tendencies, seen in the extreme in the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and during World War II.
For that reason, her art has been embraced more in Korea than her native land, a nation reluctant to consider moral or other reparations for its WWII misdeeds (including scars left in Korea, with its “comfort women” stigma).
