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| Tomie Arai’s Momotaro/Peach Boy series is inspired by a traditional Japanese folktale and given a contemporary reading. In the classic tale, an old couple who have dreamed of having a child, discover a giant peach floating in the river. They open it and boy leaps out whom they name Momotoro. He becomes a hero through his journey to defeat the marauding ogres, aided by a pheasant, a dog and a monkey. Hearing the story as a child, Arai, herself a third generation Japanese-American, pictured her father as a soldier battling the ogres. She has used those memories to tell this tale of “second chances generated by desperate acts, retold as a way to explain the endless cycle of hope, expectation, and grief brought by war.” There are thirteen panels in the series that uses family photographs of the artist’s grandfather, father, and son, as well as cartoon characters, material from the National Archives, traditional Japanese motifs, and illustrations. Eight of the thirteen panels are displayed. In Grief, an old woman is surrounded by images of wartime Hiroshima. Hope depicts the floating peach, with Momatoro emerging in Possibility. The grandfather and the son stand before a backdrop of the internment camps. In Soldier’s Story, Momotoro becomes a soldier, and in Sailing Away he explores the world accompanied by his helpers. In the next panel Momotoro holds up the peach, successful in his quest, and a sense of community is expressed in Redemption as the peach circles back to the grandparents.
As a public artist, Tomie Arai engages controversial subjects with great sensitivity. She began her career as a muralist in the lower East Side and later began printmaking as a way to investigate cultural imagery and the representation of Asian Americans. She has participated in numerous residencies and completed public art projects throughout the country. In New York, she created a mural memorializing the African American Burial Ground at the Federal Office Building through the U.S. General Services Administration. Her design for the Pelham Parkway Station #2/5 Train Station is a panorama of indigenous plants and trees through the seasons. The Arizona Humanities Council commissioned a series of prints for Transforming Barbed Wire, to commemorate the forced internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Her work has been exhibited widely including the CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, NY; the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY; Chinatown History Museum; New York, NY; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY.
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Momotaro / Peach Boy, 1998
panel 3
mixed media, paint on wood
40” x 30” each
Courtesy of the artist
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Momotaro / Peach Boy, 1998
panel 4 |
Momotaro / Peach Boy, 1998
panel 6 |
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Momotaro / Peach Boy, 1998
panel 8 |
Momotaro / Peach Boy, 1998
panel 11 |
Momotaro / Peach Boy, 1998
panel 12 |
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