ART CITIES: Tokyo-Tom Anholt
Tom Anholt explores the human condition through paintings composed of florid allegory, rich narratives, and otherworldly landscapes that mine the imagination as well as the visual lexicons of Hellenic antiquity, Persian miniature painting, European Romanticism, and beyond. Anholt’s paintings often take as their subject matter serene nature scenes that tap keenly into sentiments of tranquility and contentment.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Blum Gallery Archive
Compared with Tom Anholt’s earlier works, the paintings comprising the exhibition “Distant Islands” reveal a rougher edge—expressive, textural brushstrokes hint at the prickly, exhilarating feeling of going into the unfamiliar. For the artist, this sentiment arrives as an amalgamation primarily brought forth from two sources: contemporary interpretations of the naturalist and individualist ideals of German Romantic painters and the autobiographical experience of a solo traveler immersing himself in Japanese culture for the first time. Recalling years of imagery that have emanated globally out of Japan as he prepared for this exhibition, Anholt becomes a spectator within his own subconscious—recontextualizing latent ideas and creating paintings that gaze upon something with which the artist has become acquainted anew. With several works in the exhibition referencing compositions by famed German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich, particularly the exhibition’s titular work, Anholt’s paintings utilize figures as surrogates for the viewer. Composed in a manner that makes the canvas’s subject both the onlooker and the observed, one is encouraged to examine their own dual role as a spectator of culture and as an object to be surveyed within the public sphere. Examining the queries of the German Romantics for a new generation, this dissection of the solo beholder versus the group of the surveilled feels uniquely pertinent in a post-internet, post-global era. “Distant Islands’s” theme of observation also serves to call attention out the window to some of Japan’s most well-known motifs—drawing them back into the gallery space. Synonymous with springtime in the region, the branches and blooms of this iconic flora become snaking mahogany brushstrokes and punctuated, vivid pink marks in vignettes such as “Cherry Blossom” (2025). In the perceived depths of this work, a careful viewer will also note a passing traveler upon the sea as he takes in this seasonal splendor. Another major influence that Anholt cites for this exhibition is the oeuvre of celebrated Japanese ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Hiroshige. Seeking an ambiguous middle ground between the flatness of this print medium and the pictorial depth of Western painting, Anholt layers his picture planes as if printing and adds depth therein. “Shallow Dive” (2025), for instance, finds a diver plunging into a sweeping river through the flatness of silhouetted trees. As he hurls into the dark water below, this diver also furthers adventurous themes permeating throughout the exhibition.
Photo: Tom Anholt, Distant Islands, 2025, oil on linen, 59 x 74 3/4 x 1 1/4 inches, Photo: Gunter Lepkowski, ©Tom Anholt, Courtesy the artist and Blum Gallery
Info: Blum Gallery, Harajuku Jingu-no-mori 5F 1-14-34 Jingumae, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, Duration: 12/4-14/6/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 12:00-18:00, https://blum-gallery.com/
