“In 2005, Niki & Yusuke Tsukamoto opened Lookout & Wonderland Workshop as an inspiration center for their personal art practices, artistic collaboration, contemplation and the making of hand crafted goods. Lookout & Wonderland Workshop is deeply informed by the essence of the Vienna Secession, Wiener Werkstätte and Gesamtkunstwerk, with the ultimate goal of creating a life that is the ideal work of art.”
WRATH, DESTRUCTION, & THE SUPRAMUNDANE
These four Los Angeles-based artists and craftspeople from vastly different mediums have come together to create an installation that explores the materials and tools of contemplative practices.
Artist Yusuke Tsukamoto’s modernist illustrations, based on the interwoven deities of Hindu and Buddhist mythologies, have been translated into naturally dyed fabric scrolls by fiber artist Niki Tsukamoto. Six uniquely dyed Zafu and Zabuton (traditional Zen meditation pillows) sit in repose beneath the scrolls as an extension of color study and reflection. Metalsmith Tania Enriquez’ distinctively designed brass incense burners hold Persephenie’s handcrafted botanical incense offerings which additionally become objects of contemplation on time and place.
The installation reveals the overlap of cultures and lineages that have influenced meditation for thousands of years, with a touch of the irony of being. Each piece created is a study of personal practice and humanity’s timeless need to craft materials and mythology in the search of our true nature.
ABSOLUTE MAGNITUDE: Knowing, Ignorance and Being
A collaborative, narrative-based work of naturally dyed and appliquéd flags by Lookout & Wonderland: Yusuke Tsukamoto and Niki Livingston examining the nature of consciousness and personal reality.
Throughout history, man has used cloth to fabricate banners with distinctive designs and coded sets of colors to be used as symbols, signaling devices and as decoration. Over time these devices have evolved into a general tool for rudimentary signaling and identification as a form of nonverbal communication.
Applying the basis of this form, it is our intention to examine the nature of personal reality, knowledge and the limitation of knowing on perceived matter. Using botanical dyes to create our uniform colors, we have cut and assembled a representational narrative out of cotton and hemp to study the conundrum of universal non-duality, the origin of consciousness and the modern mind.
James Frederick Ferrier suggests in Philosophy of Consciousness,
What is it but the act of consciousness, the act of becoming "I," the act of placing ourselves in the room which sensation and passion have been made to vacate? This act may be obscure in the extreme, but still it is an act of the most practical kind, both in itself and in its results...for what act can be more vitally practical than the act by which we realize our existence as free personal beings?
COLLABORATION
A selection of works created in collaboration with Early Birds Tokyo for Daikanyama T-site, Briefing Japan, Roxy
ONE OF THE KIND BRANDING
Brand identity and logo design projects created for Mohawk General Store, El Ray Court, Solar Return, The End, Journal Standard to name a few