Do you have any paintings like that since switching over to color?Not yet. I guess you could say color is still an ongoing process for me. I’m using a somewhat limited set of paints at the moment, but I do have times when I toy with the idea of going back to oil painting, which I haven’t touched since my student days. Still, oil paintings take forever to dry, so that might not be the best fit for me... I’m in the middle of testing a lot of things.
It seems you place a high emphasis on sense in your work. Are there any times when you consider things from a more logical angle?There are times when I consider color composition and mixtures, but that also falls into the realm of sense, I suppose, so no, there aren’t really any times where I’m working off logic. I’m a slave to my intuition. My work isn’t something that turns out well just because I’ve thought it through in my head, and when it comes down to it, there are things where I won’t know for sure until I try them. So while some article out there might say, “When we consider the context of Tomoo Gokita...” the truth is, no—I never really think about context or anything like that
So your artwork is just pure expression.I guess that’s the only way to put it.
But what is it an expression of?You might think I’m a real idiot after this, but I honestly don’t know. Even I wonder what it is I’m painting.
I get the impression that you really just go where your mind takes you in your work, but are there any times where you feel “I want to do something more like this”?I want to be even more free. That’s all I think about. I actually feel pretty constrained.
What do you mean by “more free”?Even though I have it in my head that I should just do whatever I want and to hell with what other people think, there’s also a part of me that feels I have to make “proper artwork” or wonders if what I’ve made is okay in a technical sense. It really is like I’ve got some sort of mental block somewhere. That’s why at my next LA show, I’m thinking I might remove that and just put out a bunch of super small pieces, maybe even drawings I think are cool. That’s how free I was at that first group show in New York. I was only doing what I really loved.
Someone told me in another interview that “It seems fun being able to paint so freely,” but the fact is, it’s not fun at all.
So maybe the best rush is when you’re immersed in your work?I do experience a rush, almost an awakening of sorts, like “Whoa!” when I finish a painting. But it’s not what I’d call “fun”. Fun is really more in the realm of hobbies. Listening to music, fiddling with audio gear, tinkering with bike parts—all those are hobbies and thus super fun. But I’m not having fun when I’m painting.
For example, sometimes I’ll still design flyers and t-shirts for friends, but that’s different from my own artwork. It’s like I’m working with my designer senses, a different mind unrelated to painting. That’s why it’s easy. But it’s still pretty awful. Ever since my Mac broke 10 years or so ago, I’ve been using instant lettering or making copies at the convenience store right over there then cutting and pasting those to finish projects. My scanner also went kaput quite a while back, so these days I do everything with my iPhone, taking pictures and then quickly tweaking the contrast. Back when I was a designer I worked so proficiently with my Mac, but now here I am sketching it all out, doing it all by hand. All too often I’ll draw out my idea on the spot with a magic marker and be like, “Okay, there you go” (laughs).
I also do quite a few record jackets, most recently the jacket for a cover LP of Haruomi Hosono’s seminal album Hosono House. I accepted the offer immediately when it came to me, but the pressure was all the greater since I love the album so much. That said, it only took me about 40 minutes from start to finish. When I looked at other people’s EP jackets that were released first, it was mostly collages and elaborate illustrations, so I thought it’d be more interesting to leave as much untouched as I could, and so I whipped up something faithful to the original jacket using only black.