Painter Hiroomi Ito uses traditional means to produce contemporary scenes and ideas. And he takes this process further than just creating his own color pigments; he actually creates the rice paper on which his works are crafted. In these works, Ito explores modern social issues as they relate to customs of the past.
JanKossen Contemporary in New York comments on the spiritual influences in the artist’s work: “Ito’s work is a celebration of how God provides for us, in connection to the importance of the family as a social unit for the individual. His images of food on the table are inspired by European 15th century still life paintings of the natural world. Ito depicts dishes typically found in Asia, as symbols of both devotional and secular images.”
The venue describes his process leading up to the work as much as it does the creation of each piece itself. On the framing, it says that “The delicate paper is stretched and mounted upon a classical, wooden frame prepared by the artist in a chess-board pattern.”