This extraordinary artist draws inspiration from 17th-century Still Life, reinterpreting this rare genre in contemporary art with a unique, authentic, and delicate style. Her Still Life paintings depict tables laden with flowers, candles, mirrors, crystal spheres, cakes, meat, and fish. The hands featured in her paintings introduce an element of movement and "disruption" from traditional Still Life. These hands emerge, reaching to grab some delicious food or holding a wine glass or cutlery.
Tsumura’s painting is unconventional. Something magical lingers, immersing us in a dreamlike dimension. Her Still Life paintings are alive and vibrant, with blue hues standing out boldly, transporting us to a parallel world where we are guests at an inviting banquet offering delights and pleasures, but also truths about life. Viewing her work means witnessing precious fragments of life, rich in allure and mystery. There seems to be something unsaid, something only we can comprehend.
The artist, through her depiction of such intimate, ambiguous, and indefinite scenes, leaves the viewer free to experience the work in their own way. The viewer is called to continue the story and imagine the connections within the painting.
Tsumura enjoys “leaving spaces for the imagination to fill.” Not everything must be said and expressed. We must leave room for the viewer’s imagination to make the artwork their own. In this regard, Tsumura, in an interview with Alexandra Mazzanti, Director of Dorothy Circus Gallery, revealed: “My hope is that the viewer reflects on their own idea of intimacy, of relationships, and what remains unspoken in the most secret moments.”
Through a meticulous descriptive and evocative capacity for intimate experience, Kana Tsumura’s works convey “Momentous Memories.” Kana creates a true synesthetic marvel where we can perceive the scent of flowers and their petals falling on the table, taste the various dishes, and hear the voices of the guests conversing. The diverse textures stimulate our senses on multiple levels, evoking not just a visual reaction but also engaging touch, taste, and even smell. This sensory interplay creates something profoundly primordial. Kana’s images, like the Latin root Imago, are ghosts, dreams, memories, reflections, and hallucinations, sharing unrepeatable moments through a meticulous and evocative description of intimate experiences.
In the artist’s words: “Memory is the core of my art, but not in a literal or documentary way. It’s not about remembering individual moments or objects but capturing the atmosphere: fleeting beauty, mystery, that subtle sense of unease. I use my memories as emotional threads, weaving them into each brushstroke. What remains inside me are the emotions tied to those memories, and I try to distil them into my works so that the viewer can perceive those same sensations: a strange familiarity, a slight tension, or a comforting warmth.”
Tsumura’s still lifes are deeply rooted in the tradition of Vanitas and Memento Mori, finding a particular affinity with 17th-century painters who gave great depth to these themes. Kana invites us to reflect on the fragility, transience, and inevitability of time. This is depicted in the flower petals scattered on the table, in the meat or the fish. In these elements, we find references to death and the ephemerality of all things.
We see this in Tsumura’s work as well as in important works of the past, such as Caravaggio’s “Basket of Fruit”, painted in the late 1500s, depicting a wicker basket filled with various fruits. The fruit and its leaves are not perfect. The apple is worm-eaten, some leaves are dry, and some grapes are damaged—all elements through which Caravaggio sought to express the impermanence of earthly things and life itself: the fruit, a source of life, is destined to perish, just as life is.
However, Tsumura lives in the present, and her work also reflects the modern world. As the artist stated, “Today, I see life and death as something more fluid; I never depict death without also suggesting a sign of life. There is always a reference to vitality, a trace of something still pulsing and alive. In this sense, my work is no longer just a confrontation with the end but a celebration of the cycle, the rhythm, the continuous dance between the two poles. This is where I depart from tradition: it’s no longer about staring mortality in the face but recognising the heartbeat of life within it.”
In her Still Life paintings, there is both life and death, perfectly intertwined, as they are part of a continuous cycle where one cannot exclude the other. In her paintings, Tsumura combines the symbolism of decay, represented by cut fruit, meat, fish, and wilted petals, with magical elements, thus creating a profound commentary on the cyclical and regenerative nature of existence while also reflecting on the realities of contemporary consumerism and its implications.
Meat and fish occupy a central position in the artist’s compositions, not only for their visual impact but also for the symbolism they evoke. The act of feeding emphasises how life perpetuates through death, whether that of a fish, fruit, or animal.
In her depictions, the artist does not express a moral judgement but merely reflects the raw reality of existence. There is something profoundly human in this cycle, which her work seeks to convey. Even though the fruits and animals on the table are no longer alive, their presence continues to vibrate with life, reminding us of our dependence on what nature offers us.
Every day we witness decay and death, but when we seek comfort beyond the ordinary, where past and present merge into an eternal moment, we discover a truth of extraordinary depth. It is important to embrace the cyclicality of life, finding beauty even in its small and fleeting manifestations. We must learn to enjoy the banquet it offers, savouring the brief moments of joy it gives us, like precious fragments of light along our path.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF STILL LIFE
Still Life has very ancient origins, although it developed as a true artistic genre more recently. Here, we will briefly discuss its history, referencing some of its important figures.
Still Life is a pictorial representation depicting inanimate objects, generally fruit and flowers, but it can also include different elements such as vegetables, musical instruments, bottles, lifeless animals, skulls, and insects.
Beyond its decorative function, the depiction of objects, flowers, or food often serves as an invitation to deep reflection. Each image becomes a portal to understanding the world and life, revealing hidden symbols, allusions, and meanings. Through still lifes, painters could celebrate material pleasures such as wine and food, or they could offer a warning about the fleeting nature of such pleasures and remind us of the brevity of human life.
This pictorial genre only became independent in the early 17th century, although there were figurative experiences akin to still lives that date much earlier. In fact, we can find examples of "still lifes" in ancient Greece, Rome, and even earlier in Egypt. The roots of this genre lie in Flemish painting between the 15th and 17th centuries and in the works of Spanish artists who created bodegón (depicting humble kitchens and laid tables).
Throughout the 17th century, however, still life was not highly regarded, as it was considered a minor genre compared to history painting or other pictorial genres. In the hierarchy of genres established by the French Academy in that century, still life was considered the least prestigious, ranked fifth after history painting, portraiture, genre painting, and landscape. Still, life and landscape were deemed inferior because they did not involve human subjects.
The term "still life" was introduced in Italy only at the end of the 18th century, from the Dutch term stilleven, meaning "silent life." The genre flourished in Europe at the end of the 16th century, spurred in part by the great naturalistic curiosity of the previous century, driven by scientific discoveries in the 16th century. It particularly developed in the Netherlands, where artists of the Dutch Golden Age took their interest in floral art to the next level, giving rise to vanitas, themselves inspired by memento mori.
VANITAS AND MEMENTO MORI
Vanitas and memento mori were two genres that became very popular, especially in the 17th century, during a religious era in which almost everyone believed that earthly life was merely preparation for another life. The memento mori (Latin for "remember that you must die") was a work of art intended to remind the viewer of their mortality and the fleeting nature of life. These works often featured elements such as skulls, cut flowers, hourglasses, clocks, and extinguished or consumed candles.
Vanitas, on the other hand, were still lives that, in addition to these elements, also included other objects symbolising the futility of worldly pleasures and goods, such as wine, musical instruments, or books.
SUBLIME BEAUTY AND DEEP SYMBOLISM: ARTIST AND STILL LIFES OF THE PAST
Among the most significant still life artists, in addition to Caravaggio, we find Fede Galizia (1578–1630), an Italian painter active in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. She mainly painted portraits, the figure of Judith, and still lifes. Galizia was inspired by both the Flemish and Arcimboldo, but especially by Caravaggio's Basket of Fruit. Her still lives were distinguished by their elegance and simplicity. Her works often featured only a few objects, typically fruit, flowers, and insects, aiming to showcase the fragility of life through their simplicity and the occasional imperfection of the depicted elements (such as decaying fruit or wilted flowers). Among her most significant works is the splendid "Cherries in a Silver Compote".
Other important artists in this genre include Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, known for his meticulously detailed flower compositions, and the incredible Flemish artist Clara Peters (1594–1636), a pioneering still life painter. Peters created works of sublime beauty with intricate details, and sometimes we can even see her own reflection on the reflective surfaces of objects in her compositions. For example, in "Still Life with Fish, a Candle, Artichokes, Crab and Prawns" (c. 1611), her reflection appears in the black lid of a jug in the background. Her compositions were rich with elements and details, depicting various types of food and kitchen utensils, stunning for their realism, though often tinged with a certain aura of mystery.
In the 18th century, the French painter Jean-Baptiste Chardin, inspired by the masters of the Dutch Golden Age, created small, simple still lifes often featuring food and everyday objects. His works, realised with extraordinary refinement, include the delicate "The Sliced Melon" from 1760.
Turning to modern art, we find Édouard Manet, who explored this genre, representing subjects ranging from flowers to lifeless animals, vegetables, and laid tables. Paul Cézanne also produced several splendid still lives, particularly those featuring apples, such as Still Life with Apples and Oranges (1899). His still lives were no longer realistic but became the perfect subject for exploring geometric spatiality. His experiments directly led to the development of Cubist still lifes in the early 20th century.
Later, Picasso also ventured into still life, creating many, including the famous Still Life with Chair Caning. In Italy, during the 20th century, Giorgio Morandi became the leading exponent of still life, a genre he explored innovatively and with an extremely personal style, focussing on everyday objects like bottles, vases, and kitchen utensils.
Still life has thus traversed centuries and styles, evolving from a simple representation of everyday objects into a true vehicle for deep existential reflections. From the splendour of the 17th-century Dutch masters to the experiments of Cubism, and from Morandi's poetic essentiality to Kana Tsumura's enchanting compositions, this artistic genre has transformed and evolved while retaining its ability to evoke the fragility of existence. Every still life is, in the end, a silent dialogue between the artist, time, and the viewer, an invitation to grasp the beauty and transience of the moment.
