Drawings of Ryoko Aoki

Portrait and images courtesy of Ryoko Aoki

Often, when Ryoko Aoki finishes a drawing, she asks herself, “How on earth did this happen?”

Her intricate landscapes of pastoral scenes, geometric patterns, and everyday objects seem to spring from the Japanese artist’s own subconscious dream world. “I resolve myself to thinking that the drawing was meant to be the way it is.”

Based in Osaka, Aoki has been drawing since childhood, preferring the simplicity and ease of pen and paper to the formality of paint and canvas. “With canvas, it takes a lot of time and effort just to prepare the medium before I get to start drawing,” she explains. “Paper is readily accessible, and I can start drawing anywhere, without any pressure.”

This lack of pressure is ubiquitous in Aoki’s seemingly impromptu sketches. Drawings feel spontaneous and improvised, with lines that are alternately delicate and thick, looping, and stick-straight. In a recently published zine for the Swiss alternative press publisher Nieves, the images follow a loose narrative, revealing the interactions between nature, the built world, and a hoop-skirted woman. The former plays a particularly large role in the story, with delicate flowers woven together like a spider’s web and a series of drawings depicting different-sized fish. “Rarely do I start with a clear or specific theme in mind,” she admits. “When I draw from observation, I like to draw things that are dried out or wrinkled up, because there are many details for me to draw.”

When asked about her title as an artist, Aoki demurs. Though she is the sole living Japanese artist to exhibit at the highly respected Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, she is modest about her achievements. “As I went to see the exhibition, I almost felt like a tourist rather than a participator.” She continues more optimistically, “I saw lots of new things which gave me good ideas for my next piece of work.”

Even though Aoki will have a solo exhibition at the Kodama Gallery in Osaka in December, she still has trouble classifying what she does. “I don’t think I have ever in my life thought to myself, ‘I will become an artist.’ Even now, I don’t really know what I am.” Not that it matters; to us, her drawings were meant to be the way they are.