About Tadashi Asoma

Japan

Transient natural experience is the true subject of Tadashi Asoma: changing seasons, shimmering reflections in a pond as the afternoon fades, a sudden shower or cascade of falling leaves. Luminous yet subtle landscape paintings and graphics reveal the fusion of three cultural influences, reflecting places Asoma has lived and worked.

Born in Japan, Asoma was awarded a Japanese Government scholarship to study in Paris in 1956, four years after his first exhibition in Tokyo. The Impressionists’ romance with color and Post-Impressionists use of pattern, design and graphic abstraction profoundly influenced the artist, whose palette is distinctly Impressionistic. Three years later during a visit to the U.S., Asoma became intrigued with both the abstract and graphic quality of American contemporary art and decided to settle in the U.S. permanently with his family.

Although the French and American influences are evident in his work, Asoma’s style is rooted in his Japanese heritage with the asymmetry, partial abstraction and cropped perspective of a larger landscape recalling the Ukiyo-e woodblock printmakers. Drawing on his considerable aesthetic sensibilities, Asoma masterfully renders the ephemerality of nature, accenting the earth’s fragile balance.

Well known to collectors of contemporary art, Asoma has had 23 one-person exhibits at the David Findlay Galleries in New York (the first in 1965), extensive exhibits in the U.S., Europe and Japan and is included in prominent corporate collections including American Express, Atlantic Richfield, IBM, The Marriott Corporation and Toshiba America.