History’s last impact

Toshiko Okanoue knew that the events of her childhood would one day influence what she would become. She was born during a time of enormous change in Japan: The government had expanded its military and was eager to increase its influence around the globe. By 1931, Japan was occupying Manchuria and, as a result, was pushed out of an alliance with the United Kingdom and the United States that had been built during World War I.

With ties between the United States and Japan already strained because of the occupation in northern China, the U.S. placed an oil embargo on Japan after the Japanese military invaded what is now Vietnam. The embargo enraged an already-heated situation internationally and eventually led to Japan joining the Anti-Comintern Pact with Nazi Germany in 1941. Shortly after, the Japanese military attacked the United States via Pearl Harbor and propelled U.S. involvement in World War II.

For much of Okanoue’s younger life, her country’s military presence was overseas, leaving the impact of war only visible on the covers of newspapers and the faces of returned veterans. In 1945 this changed when the past decades of military involvement ended abruptly with two atomic bombs desecrating Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It seems obvious to say that this was the defining moment of Okanoue’s life.

After the war in 1948, Okanoue went to college to study fashion and design and eventually discovered her talent for collage. Harie was the form of collage first introduced to Okanoue, a Japanese method that involves the creative combinations of hand-molded paper. She eventually started creating collages from the photos in American magazines such as Life and Vogue, creating masterpieces that have become popularized today within a span of roughly six years.

After marrying in 1957, Okanoue’s short-lived career as an artist ended. She has gone on to show her work in venues around the globe and has even created illustrations for children’s books, but she has yet to create any other major works.

Her collages are prime surrealist art, exploring the inner workings of a childhood tainted by the constant presence of war. The images speak of the confusion and significance of the time and leave the lines between dreams and reality fairly vague. You see the presence of an us-and-them mentality, with the U.S. still being the land of possibility and Japan being left with nothing but tiny fragments that need to be rearranged and pasted together.

In one piece, a heavy hand reaches out from the top of a looming building while our protagonist floats away on a choppy sea. In another, long legs and blond hair are given a hand as a torso, which holds a deck of cards arranged neatly by number and suit. Okanoue’s work is both creepy and brilliant, teetering somewhere between a Tim Burton film and an Oliver Stone masterpiece.

The post-9/11 generation is beginning to emerge. It seems likely that the events that have shaped our recent history will one day be translated through the eyes of peaceful observers from New York to Baghdad whose dreams have been shaped by our modern world.