Jeffrey Nishinaka

by Katherine Avalos

According to Leo Tolstoy in the essay “What is Art”, art should infect the viewers with the same emotions that he or she feels about his or her work, while according to Bell Hooks in the essay “Art on My Mind”, art should decolonize the mind. I believe that Jeffrey Nishinaka’s art accomplishes both of these requirements in his work.

Nishinaka’s work made for the “Children's Museum of the East End” in Bridgehampton, New York fulfill Tolstoy and Hooks ideas about art. Tolstoy writes that “If only the spectator or auditors are infected by the feeling which the author has felt, it is art” (2). By this he means that art only occurrs when the viewer feels the same emotion that the artist feels about his or her piece of work, and is what Nishinaka produced in the sculpture made for the “Children's Museum of the East End”, in New York. A three-dimensional paper sculpture is something amazing that could not be compared with any kind of sculpture specially if it has the most symbolic buildings situated around the world; this is how Nishinaka’s work accomplished with Tolstoy idea of the viewers having the same feeling that the artist has about his piece.

In addition I also believe that the piece made for the “Children's Museum of the East End” in Bridgehampton, New York accomplishes Bell Hooks’ ideas about art. She writes in “Art on My Mind” that we must decolonize our minds in order to make art. She also writes that “defamiliarization takes us away from the real only to bring us back to it in a new way”(Hocks 4).  Jeffrey Nishinaka decolonizes the mind of the viewers by creating three-dimensional pieces that seen as if they have being made of marble but bring us back when they  are watched closely because they are only made of paper.

Nishinaka’s sculpture “The Tiger Mask,” it does something similar. It is the sculpture of tiger head made of paper that  looks at the vieweres as it is looking for prey. This sculpture sets the imagination free, as Hooks writes in “Art on My Mind”, and I think she would admire this piece. Moreover the sculpture looks very impressive when you see it for the first time. However, when you look again and contemplate for a bit, the sculpture look as it has being made of marble instead of paper because of its perfection creating emotion in the viewers. So, Nishinaka not only manage with the ideas of Hooks but also with the ideas of Tolstoy about art because his work evokes similar emotions in every viewer that contemplate “The Tiger Mask.”