Tina Takako Prentis
Painting, mixed media, collage.
My mixed heritage (I’m from Japan, but have lived here in the UK for much of my life) has made me very interested in how culture shapes artistic taste. I love colour, and enjoy abstract painting because it allows me to express my emotions freely and directly. As an exploration of my inner self, I can follow the accident and find new shapes and forms that challenge conventional expectations. It’s also great fun!
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Tina Takako comes from an artistic family with deep roots in the ancient island kingdom of Okinawa, in the very south of Japan. Her doctor father was a keen amateur painter, her mother a renowned teacher of ikebana and calligraphy, and her elder sister is a successful artist who has won a number of national awards in Japan.
But Tina was to forge her own path, rebelling against the strict patriarchal atmosphere of a traditional Japanese home. Her life is about freeing herself from the Japanese saying "The nail that sticks out will be hammered in."
Together with her husband Simon, a British translator and interpreter she met in Tokyo, she left Japan in 1986 to travel through China and the US on an intensive 8-month trip to explore the roots of their shared East-West culture, an experience that remains an inspiration in her work.
The couple then settled in London, and over the next two decades Tina enthusiastically applied her artistic talent to creating eclectic and inspiring interiors for the homes where they raised their two children – a practical skill she went on to refine through a study program at the KLC School of Design in Chelsea. Her love of English eclectic home style emerged while she was there.
She loves London's racial diversity, great museums, theatres, cinemas, concert venues, wonderful parks and its lively creative atmosphere.
Indeed she enjoys the happiness of pursuit.
