Gabrielle and her Sister after Fontainebleau (big)

The painting Tomoko pays her attention to depicts Gabrielle d'Estréès and her presumed sister - who's probably the brunette Duchess of Villars - noble women, in an erotic behavior which is enough weird for that time, in an artwork located in the second part of the artistic movement it belongs to - begun in the France of the Sixteenth century thanks to Francesco I and called Fontainebleau School. New-Patronage is nowadays characterized by brands and mass marketing - french brands but also worldwide famous others. The desire of the King who sponsored the movement was to create in the court a cultural environment in a refined atmosphere - which could recreate the golden age of Renaissance - while today in Tomoko's work the aim is to reach a seriality and make art affordable for everyone, with a critic to the decline of valors and customs in the Occidental world above all. Luxury marketing is the protagonist and it suddenly emerges: this is a market which knows no crisis but which also lives together with mass consumption products were the new King is allegorically speaking, consumption which plains everything. In this Pop Icon of Occidental art history - exposed at second floor in the Louvre Museum in Paris - the two sisters (or the presumed because we don't have any official document which can confirm this) are submerged in a sort of bathtub. The "pinch" on Gabrielle's nipple, notoriously the official lover (but not the only one) of King Henry IV: according to the critics he was married to a sterile Margherita and couldn't give a heir to himself and to the nation. He could have the much younger Gabrielle, so the act of the sister of touching her breast, symbol of maternity, could also has this meaning: soon the young woman will be a mother and generate the heir to the throne which, in the work by Tomoko, is represented by a hypothetical nurse in the background who is dressing the future heir with Petit Bateau, the famous french brand for kids while having an engagement ring (which would obviously be a Tiffany today) means the role of Gabrielle as a substitute of queen Margherita. The recall to the "noble dowry" goes today to a "Visa Oro" credit card, with Tomoko's Salomè iconic head. In the detailed vectorial work by Tomoko the historical theme is put aside to better show up the idea many people would have: two women who are in love and flirting with a "pinching" act which could also mean a homosexual love or seduction. This thing is valorized by the fact that official critic doesn't give confirmation of the two figures being sisters but above all the choice of the painter of the original piece to remain anonymous because he may have revealed some secrets or told something unspeakable for that time.

Screen printing in Vectorial Art, limited edition. Signed and numbered in originale by the artist.

Tomoko Nagao: artworks and biography of the artist

Tomoko Nagao is one of the main contemporary artists of Micropop art. Born in 1976 in Nagoya, Japan, where she studied the stylised forms of Nara Yoshitomo and the Superflat style of Takashi Murakami. Today she is considered the most important exponent of Micropop and Superflat in Italy, where she now lives.

Tomoko draws inspiration from the works of Caravaggio, Velázquez, Tiziano, La Tour, Botticelli, Hokusaiand revisits them by presenting global brands such as Coca-Cola, iPad, Barilla, Play Station PSP. The adaptation of the classic paintings of the great masters by Tomoko Nagao is meant to be ironic towards the economic mechanisms of art, as it aims to bring Renaissance patrons, such as the Medici, and the creative directors of big brands onto the same level.

In this way, his works become a metaphor for globalisation, making them more "easy to read" thanks to the Japanese aesthetic concept of "Kawaii" that makes everything "cool". His production includes original paintings, stencils and vectorial art. She practices the Superflat style, the Japanese postmodern art movement founded by Takashi Murakami, which characterises her artistic production.

Tomoko's innovative and original art

The works by Tomoko Nagao are full of flat, emphatic images with defined contours. Her art is innovative and original, combining at the same time classical and contemporary art, Eastern traditions and Western culture. He chooses classic subjects from the history of art that are world-famous and instantly recognisable and revisits them in a Pop key and with elements of Japanese Manga and Ukiyo-e culture. One of the best examples of this is the Mickey Mouse wearing Armani underwear.

In September 2015 his work Botticelli - The Birth of Venus with Baci was exhibited at the Gemalde Galeriein Berlin and, in 2016, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on the occasion of The Botticelli Renaissance group show, considered by critics to be one of the most interesting events of that year.

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