Naoko Morisawa | Happy Dreamer

Morisawa combines disparate and incongruous materials to form beautiful and disorienting designs that reflect a series of visual paradoxes in her mosaic-like work. Although she has done representational images in the past, Naoko’s current work is focused almost exclusively on abstraction. For her, these abstract compositions are a visual representation of feelings that cannot be adequately expressed through language or traditional figuration.

Morisawa’s methodology for creating boldly colored mosaic paintings is both highly technical and entirely intuitive, layering thousands of meticulously cut and oil-stained wood and paper pieces to create dynamic textures, shadows, color fields, and patterns. Guided by a general impulse, the artist engages in a spirited back and forth with her works, embracing improvisation and chance as she brings a piece into being. With a background in traditional Japanese marquetry (or intarsia) – a technique in which images are created using carefully cut and glued slivers of wood – Morisawa sees the natural textures and patterns of the wood grain and paper fibers as fundamental elements in her pieces.

Naoko Morisawa was born in Tokyo, Japan, and studied art at Japan’s Tama Art University. She has worked as a commercial product designer for Godiva Chocolate and Twining Tea and taught art classes in Tokyo, Yokohama, and the Canadian Embassy before moving to the USA in 2004. She has exhibited her work in more than 30 states across the US, in Japanese museums, the Dublin Biennale, National Weather Center Biennale, Bellingham National at Whatcom Museum, and Tokyo Art Olympia Biennale at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Japan. Her work is included in the collections of City of Seattle, Kent, Edmonds, Lynnwood, Kent and Shoreline, Seattle Center, Seattle Public Utilities, Washington Convention Center, Macy’s Seattle, Amazon, Nordstrom Inc. General Electric HQ Exhibition, and Facebook- Meta (TBC).