Tomoko Kashiki

The intricate details of Kashiki's work is said to be influenced by Buddhist art from the Heian period.[8]

Kashiki primarily paints female figures[9] and is said to also draw inspiration from Bijin-ga style of depicting beautiful women, a central theme from the ukiyo-e genre of Japanese art.[8] Her concern with specific details of the body, such as wrinkled skin, are reflected in a series of drawings from 2014.[6]

The settings in which these figures are placed are often "otherworldly backgrounds",[5] which still appear to be loosely based on the city of Kyoto, Tomoko Kashiki's hometown.[2] Interior spaces where she often situates her women are identifiable. The hallways, columns, windows, even electrical sockets provide a definitive sense of ground[8] yet seemingly empty, varied, and flattened perspectives[5] create "an imaginary and ethereal world with no specific temporal or geographic location".[2]

Kashiki carefully selects all of the elements of a painting based on a clear, "private philosophy of beauty".[10] "...gesture, facial expression, pose, specific objects, background, location, situation, spacial [sic] composition, surface texture, line thickness, nexus of layers, degree of blurring" all become relevant considerations to her vision.[10]

Fluid, organic and sensual elements like the effects of water are reoccurring themes in Kashiki's works,[5] which she explains to be informed by her "fresh feeling of being alive".[10] Dream, desire[5] and yearning[2] remain to be central motifs, which begin "bleeding into the surreal".[8] Bodies and shadowy figures have unreal, distorted physiques – featuring excessively long, flowing limbs – a common characteristic to find in Surrealist art.[2] Her settings are also seen as recognizably Surrealist in their vast, empty yet familiar nature.[2]

Kashiki uses various painting mediums including acrylic, pastel, color pencil, and others.[5] In some recent works, she has painted directly onto wooden panel.[9] Since her graduate training, Kashiki began following a complex, ritualized process of her own.[2] First sketched in pencil, her works are painted in acrylic, layer by layer onto a linen cloth mounted on large Chamfered wooden boards.[9] Compositions are structured with overlapping, receding facets as she paints, sands and carves the surface of the panel, then repaints and pounces,[2] layer over layer.[8] This multi-step process has been seen as a physical articulation of Kashiki's own fleeting impressions – the "flickering", fleeting landscapes of emotions and memories in her mind.[8] In this way, Kashiki's paintings have been considered "a manifestation of [her] inner landscape".[11]