Turnips

Tomoe Yokoi

Tomoe Yokoi chose the humble turnip as a subject worthy of a portrait in her dark, velvety mezzotint portraying the root vegetable in a woven basket surrounded by shadow. As with much of her work from this era, she leaves out gratuitous textures and colors and shrouds the image in secrecy, making the viewer squint just a bit to fully recognize what is emerging from the soft darkness. Yokoi almost exclusively created images of still lifes, even in her more abstract compositions.