About the Japanese Kimono Series

I first met Mitsuko around 2015 when I rented an art studio in the building in Los Angeles where she has lived and worked for many years. One of its unexpected pleasures was a cactus garden that she and the owner of the property had created over time.

In the small area behind the building that had formerly been used for parking, bloomed many varieties of cactus, flowers, unusual rocks and other forms. Once transformed, it was occupied by fiercely protective hummingbirds, butterflies and a feral cat devoted to Mitsuko named Chibichan.

For awhile we showed at the same art gallery in Santa Monica. Occasionally, I would get glimpses of Mitsuko’s work if her studio door was semi-ajar, or a painting was drying on a portion of the hallway wall that, like the cat, seemed somehow to belong exclusively to her.

This extraordinary body of work from the 1980s I saw entirely by accident one day, having caught sight of her “red” cover painting on an easel in her studio. I needed to see more of them and she obliged. For me, it was as though the many layered experiences of the garden - all of its diffuse colors, shapes, textures, excesses and beauty - had found their respective voices (and places) in her work.

The relationship of these paintings to Mitsuko’s highly personal natural environment is unmistakable when some of them are placed in the garden and photographed there or against the metal door of the garage she first used as her studio.

In this body of work from the 1980s, Mitsuko Namiki drew on her love of nature and her fascination with classic Chinese painting and calligraphy; her color takes its inspiration from Japanese traditional kimonos and their color schemes. She has described these paintings as “her own inner landscapes.” She embraced the open space found in Southern California, which allowed her to follow her inner passion and gave her total freedom to paint on big canvases to fully express her intentions. In this way, she “married” Japanese artistic traditions with California’s open culture with no restrictions.

She proves that as an artist if you are true to yourself and to your unique personal history, you have an indelible signature that will come out.

Diana Gordon