Tomie Ohtake, Natural Abstraction

At Pace Gallery in Tokyo an exhibition dedicated to Tomie Ohtake retraces the evolution of the Japanese-born Brazilian artist, one of the most distinctive figures in twentieth-century abstraction. Born in Kyoto in 1913 and settled in Brazil in 1936, Ohtake developed a practice that combined formal rigor with experimental freedom, moving fluidly between painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Her works evoke natural and cosmic phenomena, as well as the landscapes and topographies of Brazil, through a subtle balance between organic forms and structured geometries. The exhibition presents eight paintings created between 1963 and 2004 and a painted steel sculpture from 2013, a tubular structure that seems to dance in space and reflects the artist’s ability to infuse essential forms with movement and vitality. Ohtake is also known for her large-scale public works, such as the monumental yellow sculpture Infinity installed near the gallery, a testament to her enduring influence on contemporary urban sculpture. The canvases on view trace the gradual transformation of her visual language, from dense, tactile surfaces to more rarefied compositions where color becomes pure vibration and the image opens onto inner worlds. A deeply independent artist, Ohtake never adhered to a single movement, preferring to maintain a freedom of research that allowed her to navigate decades of avant-garde art without repetition. The show offers a concise yet powerful glimpse into a body of work that helped shape the face of modern Brazilian art, through a sensibility that fused Japanese roots with the energy of her adopted homeland.