Tom Nakashima

Interview with Tom Nakashima

Tom Nakashima has walked slowly and purposefully through life, summoning his creative powers to explore big ideas with force and focus. Although he is a man of our time, he often reaches into the past to bring clarity and resolution to complex feelings. He is a man of two worlds—both East and West—yet he constantly seeks a balance between them. And though he is not religious, his work is luminous with spiritual import.

Over six decades of honing his craft, Tom has mastered the Trinity of visual arts: painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Through his art, he attempts to address our dying planet, its environment continually ravaged by humans. He explores how religion can be both real and fantasy. And, despite our ability to destroy, he continues to explore ideas that offer humankind paths away from self-obliteration. These ideas come in the form of beautifully painted and collaged paintings, screen sculptures, and prints.

Tom is like the traveler who finds a stick on a path and asks, “Is it merely a stick, or is it—could it become—something else?” He is like one who reads the same passage many times, only to find deeper meaning with each reading. As he constructs images—whether through paintings, screens, or prints—he adds to and subtracts from each work, trying to find an essential balance, just as I believe he has tried to find a balance in who he is.

Much has been written about Tom as an American-Japanese artist. He has appropriated wonderful aspects of both cultures, as well as their selfishness and wastefulness. As he walks through life—no matter what technique he uses—he captures our gaze, bringing us face to face with a world both beautiful and horrific. Stare though we may at the changing meanings, try as we might to find our balance, we are unable to look away.

There is so much written about Tom, I just wanted to share my personal perspective on the man and artist I have known for nearly 40 years.

Giorgio Furioso

Founder and Director | Terzo Piano