For many artists, being pregnant might have influenced their work directly, offering a chance to explore themes of motherhood, perhaps, or innocence. Instead, Isoko Onodera explored what types of painting products she could safely use. As an expectant mother, she had to avoid certain chemicals and solvents used in paint supplies.
So she turned to charcoal, white chalk and other, safer products to paint figures on the canvases in her home studio.
That switch ended up changing the whole look of her paintings. Where before, she depicted figures in sunlit hues of red, green and blue, the new works were in stark shades of grey on muddy, mostly white backgrounds.
The series, called “Layered Motion,” looks like hazy black-and-white photographic portraits. What would be throwaway photos for some just happen to be Onodera’s starting point.
“I originally called it Failed Photographs,'” she says. “Most people will take a picture, and they won’t like it, because it’s blurry—so they will erase it. I like the rawness more than a clear picture. It says more about that moment, even in just snapshots. It’s just you move. That’s what we do.”
Onodera moved to the United States from Japan when she was 22. She got a bachelor’s degree in painting from the University of Central Arkansas and a master’s degree in painting and drawing from LSU in 2011. Now 39, she has made Baton Rouge her home and teaches painting and drawing at LSU.
She’s also one of the newest artist members of Baton Rouge Gallery, and her first exhibit there in June featured the “Layered Motion” series.
Somewhat shy and soft-spoken, Onodera says she typically doesn’t allow anyone in her home studio when she’s painting figures, relying instead on the photos she takes of her subjects.
“It’s hard for me to work with a model, because I’m always worried if they are comfortable or that they don’t like sitting there,” she says.
Onodera doesn’t consider her work photorealism. Though she enjoys painting faces, many of her figures lack defined facial features. She seems to interpret her photography and subjects in a muted, almost anonymous way.
“I think my approach is pretty traditional,” she says. “I want my work to be an abstract narrative, something the viewer can relate to, but not a chronological story.”
Onodera says she isn’t interested in any grand themes with her work. She’s more interested in the aesthetics.
“It sounds really strange to say, but I don’t have an important thing to say with my painting. It’s really just about creating a visual experience, nothing less or nothing more than that,” she says. “If someone can relate to one of the paintings on a personal level, then that’s great.”
