Towanohikari – Eternal Light
Ayako Bando 08.09.2018 - 10.18.2018 Narthex Gallery
About the work and artist
Nature is a major force in this installation, owing in part to the artist’s childhood. Born in Tokushima, Japan, Ayako Bando was raised surrounded by the beauty of nature: mountains, rivers, trees and flowers. Ever since she has played with the idea of an invisible world within her spiritual mind, all intertwined with nature.
While “we all walk our different lives connected to each other having separate and unique personalities, we are born pure and innocent. Our originalities are the same.”
Translated from Japanese, Towahonikari means “eternal light.”
The artist conceived the light reflected in these paintings as the light that “illuminates our heartsand brings purity.” In these works Bando expresses a connection between nature and light and energy as from one’s own body.
Rich in yellows and greens, Bando’s work almost bursts with energy from what is otherwise stark white canvas. Light refracts in circular form atop a background created with long brushes of reds, blues and oranges.
Bando is heavily influenced by Russian-born artist Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky studied and then taught painting and color theory for many years at the Bauhaus. In addition to his exploration of color, in this period Kandinsky worked intensely with geometrical forms: the circle and half-circle, the angle, straight lines, and curves.
Bando infuses this heritage with her own. “Like him, I also use a lot of color in my work. And my art work is related to nature and the human atmosphere. I’m trying to express the energy the atmosphere contains. And I always give my work movement. Motionless art is not my taste.”
Ayako Bando has exhibited in various venues in the United States, Japan, Germany and Italy. In 2017 she was the recipient of the Incentive Award for the Modern Japan Art Society Kantou Art Exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Bando has studied with a number of teachers in Osaka, London, Tokyo and New York.
Ayoko Bando, Towanohikari LE.
Ayoko Bando, Towanohikari D.