Series “Toko’s Banjo World: Almost Famous” is a collage of Nogami’s interests outside of typical visual arts discipline, starting from thrifting, old time music to hiking and encountering bears as they are featured in this series as Toko’s sidekick. The series explores an imaginary world of “what ifs”: What if Toko was a musician and recorded various albums? What if the albums featured her cultural identity as Japanese? Marrying nostalgic stereotypes from both cultures, the album covers create a new world where Toko is “almost famous”. The painting method uses a technique called “in painting” typically used by art restorers where they will paint into a lost gap in a damaged painting. It requires accurate color matching and in this case seamless flow of objects inserted into the original work.


Vinyl record jackets painted with acrylic.