press play print

 Ties Don't Bind. monoprint, 2008.

Most of the world sees materials as the means to an end.  

Materials + tools=end-product. 

But in the minds, bodies, eyes and hands of many artists, materials are crucial participants in the conversations that result in the finished object-- which, on a good day, still whispers and echoes the conversations that happened along the way.   

For Honolulu-based artist Barbara Okamoto: "Rocks and sticks whisper to me of the past and what they have seen and where they have been.  And when rocks tell me that they can fly and float, then, I know that all things are possible."   

While Okamoto’s MFA (University of Hawaii – Manoa, 1979) focus was fiber art, she is currently working primarily in mixed media printmaking and painting techniques.  Fiber sensibilities remain evident in her imagery along with influences from Hawai‘i and travels to Japan, Europe, Guatemala, and the Mainland U.S. Okamoto, affectionately known as “Bobbie” to friends, creates dynamic collograph/monotypes, combining dreamlike scenarios with an intriguing combination of textures grounded in real world experience and high contrast colors.  Bobbie’s use of negative space creates a fluid sense of movement and a surreal sense of floating through her designs. 

Okamoto builds up the textured organic surface of her rock-shaped plates with various acrylic media on mat board.   These rock forms are then inked (usually in a very dark color) and wiped like an intaglio plate.  A thin piece of sisal rope is then inked separately with a bright, hith-contrast color. This rope is carefully wrapped around the rock form before printing.  As you can imagine, this final arrangement is not easy to do without mixing ink or smudging these very different inks into each other, but the resulting images are worth the extra time and care.  Bobbie also touches up and heightens the dimensionality of her images using colored pencils.

Rock After Dark. colored pencil, 2008.