"Collaboration with Scissors" by Yoko Tanaka

Trained first as a photographer and then as an illustrator, Yoko Tanaka takes a look at life’s quieter moments in her paintings. She chooses a limited palette of soft, smoky tones that give her works a sense of stillness and otherworldliness. With an illustrator’s eye for graphic impact and a wry sense of humor, Tanaka presents three Amish-like girls engaged in a single knitting project. Straight-faced and passive, only the eyes distinguish one from the other. The girls on the end who are knitting shift their eyes ever so slightly to the girl in the middle, who holds a pair of scissors in her lap and will presumably make the final cut to their double-ended project. In the paired painting, "Scissors," she singles out a single pair of the simple, eponymous object. Achieving a kind of trompe l’oeil effect, the antique frame serves as a visual tray, presenting this humble object for our inspection. Taken together, the two works form a charming narrative sequence.