Saori Louise Tatebe in her studio Saori Louise Tatebe's evolution as an artist has taken her from painting, to ceramics and sculpture and finally to a melding of disciplines into a form uniquely her own. She is still inspired by the idea of painting, particularly the traditional Japanese ukiyo-e paintings, yet her work has taken on the added dimension of small, sculpted figures that seem to either be invading into or crawling out of her work. Little gnomes dangle from her pieces as if trying to liberate themselves from it via holes or zippers incorporated into the works. The emergence of one's inner creatures in the midst of dreamlike tableaux is a powerful, recurring image in these mixed media pieces. Saori has said, "I create pieces because I would like people to have a chance to realize again the existence of small lives."

Saori is also interested in the prevalence of ceremony and the sublime in Japanese culture, particularly the traditions of the tea ceremony and of ukiyo-e, where the beauty of nature is expressed as a state of impermanence. The purity of the natural world untouched by humans is also vital to her work, as in a Japanese garden, where the beauty found in stones and flora is prevalent. She recreates this imagery in her quietly powerful tableaux, as her miniature figures scamper about on her art and suggest an innocence that still lies dormant within us.

We do not see their faces, because they are beings free of social identity. They are born in the womb of art, and so are both natural and supernatural. In a visual vocabulary distinctly her own, Saori has taken traditional, disparate elements and brought them together to create visual poetry about human longing, salvation, despair and hope. That she has done so using tools which speak so viscerally to us is a sign of her sensitivity and commitment to creating her astounding and moving pieces.

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