November 15 - December 16, 2005

Lonny Tomono: abstraction in tradition


Our Dark Bench, 2004

Lonny Tomono bridges craft and sculpture, Asian and Western elements, and the practical with the conceptual in his striking artwork. His learning path was not a "standardized" one: he studied fine arts at the University of Hawaii and sculpture at SDSU and San José State University, then moved on to working with Japanese temple carpenter Makoto Imai at the Green Gulch Zen Center in Marin County. Energized and inspired by his work with Imai, he moved to Japan and served a five-year apprenticeship with Imai's own teacher Seichiro Kitamura, a fifth generation temple builder in Kyoto. Each step of this journey has served to inform Tomono's profound and elegant sense of artistry, of form, and of function. The mental preparation for working that flows into his open mind each morning as he focuses on sharpening his hand-tools brings for him an almost spiritual communion with his media and the traditional techniques he uses to approach his work.

But the beauty, simplicity, and harmony inherent in Japanese architecture infusing his work on an almost visceral level is paralleled with an expressive force that reveals a highly sophisticated conceptual underpinning. Tomono could have continued to work as a temple carpenter, yet felt the pull to coalesce the sometimes contradictory values of Japanese traditional arts and Western contemporary arts into more personal creations. Although his primary artistic output for the past several years has focused on the bench form, these are not purely functional furnishings. Exploring carpentry components such as joints, pins, and notches, he elevates them from their purely utilitarian usage, monumentalizing, coloring, or fitting them in ways that they become investigations into geometric and organic abstraction. Working with the wood, accepting its cracks - which he often accentuates with carbon-toned epoxies - as an honorable sign of aging. Tomono is forging a new visual vocabulary as he builds on time-honered aesthetics and traditions. Rather than being torn between two worlds, he is energized by the challenge of almost subconsciously working to join the best of both, smoothing out the edges as he intuitively measures the intangible dynamisms that nourish his muse.

 

Tomono lives on the Big Island, Hawaii. his exhibition at the Natalie and James Thompson Art Gallery will include a special selection of his fine benches, drawn from private collections and the collection of the artist. He will speak about his work on Tuesday, November 15 from 5-6 pm, prior to the opening of the display.

Scarf-Joint Bench, 2004	Voyager, 2004

download November brochure -front (pdf)
download November brochure - back (pdf)

For additional information concerning the gallery program and visiting artist lecture series, contact:

Jo Farb Hernandez, Director
Natalie and James Thompson Galleries
San Jose State University
School of Art and Design,
ART 129A
San Jose, CA 95192-0089
telephone: (408) 924 - 4328
fax: (408) 924 - 4326