Bodega Bay quietude, a solitary thrush: Kanna Aoki’s contemplative Bay scenes

Artist Kanna Aoki is an observer of the tranquil moments of life hidden within the chaos. In contemplative landscapes and studies of objects in nature, her paintings bring a sense of quietude home. Drawing on a natural curiosity cultivated in childhood, Aoki has come full circle on what captures her attention.

Aoki says her younger self would be surprised that she’s managed to carve out a life as a painter, since it wasn’t really considered an option in her family. Sneaking it in as a double major, Aoki graduated from University of the Pacific in Stockton, with a BA in mathematics and studio art. She grew up in Albany and lived in San Francisco with her husband for eight years after college. They’ve since moved back to Albany, near the Westbrae neighborhood of Berkeley, after buying a home there.

“My work life as a painter is fairly solitary, but I’m in good company with many down-to-earth, kind and supportive creative people just about everywhere in the Bay Area,” Aoki told 48hills.

Working in oils (sometimes with the addition of cold wax) on stretched canvas and panels, Aoki captures the natural world with dreamy abstraction. Her works possess a ruminative vibe evocative of glimpses in time within the traditional style of abstract-realism.

Since childhood, Aoki has kept busy making things with her hands and observing her family milieu in detail. Growing up, Aoki spent a lot of time accompanying her mother to fabric stores, taking in the color and textural motifs while her mother pored over pattern books.

“That was my art museum, in a way. My father was an avid photographer and gave me a Kodak Instamatic camera when I was in the fourth grade, which got me hooked on capturing things of interest through the lens of a camera,” she said.

Naturally inquisitive, she says that she and her sisters spent a lot of time in the yard looking for insects, playing in the dirt, dissecting leaves and flowers, and developing a love of observing and being in nature from an early age.

“We learned to appreciate simple things in our everyday surroundings, which continues to be at the root of my artwork today,” Aoki said.

Clearly. Recent series of birds, trees, and landscapes all bring an intimacy to her subject in both treatment and size (each piece is painted on small, six-by-six-inch square panels.)

With subject matter that comes from daily life, her works shine through with an inspiration of light and color, all the while reflecting her intrigue with simple compositions of moments held briefly in quiet settings.

“I’m drawn to visual moments of calm, like seeing a figure within the landscape, as in my painting Centered. I was struck by the image of a lone figure contemplating a wide body of water. I find it reassuring to feel like a small part of a vast world,” Aoki said.

Oil paint is her primary medium for its easy, buttery feel, and textural possibilities. She says she loves how it shows the hand and history of brush marks as well as its attainable range from transparency to opacity.

“Recently, I’ve been experimenting with painting swaths of color using random marks and then stepping back to see if I can wrangle the abstract chaos into an image that speaks back to me in some way,” she said.

So far, she says, what has been emerging is invented landscapes, imagined figures, and imagery that evoke water or plant life. That’s evident in her newer paintings, Path of the Bumblebee and Orbit—a clear departure from just a year ago, as evidenced by her painting Bodega Headlands (2024), by way of comparison.

Aoki places importance on maintaining a regular painting practice. Working on several pieces at a time in different stages of progress, she moves between each painting, edging each work gradually towards completion.

“Some pieces come together quickly and others take months or never reach a resolution. I’m not sure how to articulate how I know when a piece is complete, it just is,” Aoki said.

Her West Berkeley studio space near Fourth Street is inside an older building with north facing windows. Aoki has been there for eight years and enjoys having the space to herself, working four days a week for five to seven hours at a stretch. Though she is primarily a painter, Aoki has been known to try her hand at clay—an interest since middle school—with vases and vessels whose surfaces resemble her paintings.

“After time in my studio, I often go to Cass Ceramics, where I’m a member, and decompress with a couple hours of playing with clay and being with other creatives,” she said.

Aoki’s dedication to painting came late. After graduating from college and moving to San Francisco, she worked briefly in graphic design, then taught herself to use a knitting machine and created sweaters, which led to a job working for a local knitwear designer.

“Our neighbor introduced me to a fabric design course in Berkeley. I took the program for a couple years and then shifted from working with knitwear to several years working with art directors, creating artwork for clothing and home furnishings companies,” she said.

In 1997, Aoki and her husband had their first son and she gradually phased out client work. Later that year, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“It was much too soon after happily becoming a grandparent, and she died the next year. It was heartbreaking to see her life cut short just as she had entered retirement and was going to be free to explore new things in life. Because of this, a seed was planted in my mind: do the things you want to do before it’s too late,” Aoki said.

After her children reached the ages of two and four, Aoki began taking evening drawing and painting classes through the local adult school program. This was when she was introduced to oils and landscape painting. Soon, she was invited to exhibit a series of paintings for a show in the local community center. Here We Are: Scenes from Not-So-Far-Away, depict places from her childhood in Albany that were still in existence.

“It was a kind of homage to my hometown since many places had changed or disappeared. From that point forward, I’ve continued to find inspiration in my everyday surroundings, amounting to a visual journal of sorts over the years,” Aoki said.

During the pandemic, the subjects of her paintings came even closer to home, with intimate portraits of backyard birds and everyday objects. When she picked up clay again, another shift occurred. She sees her return to that medium not only as a place to play and be a student again, but as a link to her work in paint.

“I think it’s influenced my painting by emphasizing the manipulation of materials over having a preconceived idea of an outcome. It allows work to evolve organically and intuitively. I’m also starting to feel the effects of age and the need to find alternative ways of working to keep my shoulder from acting up too much,” Aoki said.

Her “playtime” in clay further extends to how she works with the medium of paint in other ways, beyond the philosophical.

“I’m enjoying throwing a wrench into my process by trying different painting mediums, colors, and tools and by challenging myself to problem-solve my way to a finished piece. In the same way I work with clay, I’m trying to make something from a mess,” she said.

Aoki is regularly represented by STUDIO Gallery in San Francisco where she will have a solo exhibition from September 4-22. She has also shown her work at SHOH Gallery in Berkeley. As Kanna Aoki continues forward, painting from a place of inherent inquiry, she hopes that people find her work uplifting.

“I hope my work sparks a sense of connectedness,” she said. “Or perhaps inspires an appreciation of moments in everyday life, especially during these difficult times.”

For more information, visit her website kannaaoki.com and her page on Instagram.