 
Tomi Kobara has been a masterful oil painter and award-winning artist
for over 30 years. Private collections of her art can be found throughout
the U.S., Switzerland, Japan, West Africa, Canada, Hong Kong, and
Australia. Public collections are with the Nordstrom Corporation,
UCLA, and have been at the Somi Museum in Japan. For over 2 decades,
Tomi's original art has been represented by fine art galleries in
Carmel, California.
Art lovers and collectors have
purchased over 1200 paintings from this California native over these
many years, whose breadth of work spans extraordinary California
landscapes, figuratives, still-lifes, and Japanese inspired subject
matter.
After much prompting from her family
and friends, Tomi has decided to offer some of her favorite works
as Limited Edition Giclées. These editions will be relatively
small in number, signed and produced on quality canvas.
Tomi's Painting Style
"I am an expressionist painter" says Tomi Kobara, " My work is a
direct, straight-forward response to the subject matter approached
with an intuitive passion. An impression yes, but hopefully expressed
in a contemporary fashion. I do interpret with some degree of exaggeration
in color and reality. I love to use texture and bold brushwork to
allow the viewer to experience the excitement of the moment I felt.
Move back and hopefully a rich perspective will come into focus.
Everyday, everywhere in my life is a visual, changing encounter
for me, as it is for you as well!" |
Excerpts
on Tomi's Style:
Tomi
is concerned with atmosphere, mood and cultural influences, ever
refining and simplifying her technique... seeking always to express
visually her keen appreciation of the constantly changing pattern
and poetry of places and things.
An expert colorist, Tomi combines good composition with style and
light, involving the viewer in an experience that is emotional as
well as visual. With an unusually clear and bright palette...and
without sentimentality.
Tomi
applies texture and integrates shapes, color and accidental happenings
into a rich and wonderfully exciting canvas. There is intellect
and subtle humor fused into her work, but her overriding gift to
art lovers the world over, is indeed, a happy one. |
|
About The Artist
You wouldn’t know by meeting with this petite and sweet “70
something” woman that she has started city cultural festivals,
grown senior centers, and helped turn around fledgling art associations.
You wouldn’t know that this mother of 4, and grandmother of
8 is a phenomenal chef where a California restaurant and a Costa
Rican resort based their menus on her recipes, and that she is a
practicing Zen martial artist and a sought after interior designer.
What strikes you when you meet Tomi and what strikes everyone for
that matter, is her unending appreciation of life, people and the
ordinary. Her focus is never on what has been done or accomplished
but always on what good things are yet to be.
Born
in Hollister, CA, her family of 10 brothers and sisters were successful
farmers. During the war her family was sent to the Japanese Internment
Camps in Arizona and suffered economic and personal loss. There
is where Tomi spent her teen years and first became interested in
art expression. She started painting professionally in 1970 while
raising her family in Saratoga CA. Tomi became involved in the Santa
Cruz and Carmel art and cultural community in the late 80’s
and moved to Aptos, CA. For the past 4 years, Tomi has lived in
Kailua, Hawaii on the Island of Oahu, and paints her original art
in a plein air studio over-looking the Pacific Ocean. |
