Welcome to in the studio with Komikka
Just this morning a friend sent me an audio message asking me in what ways I was excited to expand recently. What am I consciously looking forward to? I replied that I was excited for joy. And then went into a long breath about how little fragments of the art have changed. Things like mark marking that I would only notice or the fact that I’m now interested in clear vs black gesso. How foundational art techniques have shifted, and it got me thinking about old writings that I’ve shared, limited by word count and condensed for the sake of fitting in margins. So here are a few ways the art has changed and why certain motifs have gained new meaning.
Self-portraiture in the work
To be honest, I think it speaks to my exhibitionist nature. Art allows me to freely create without condemnation, and I frequently use myself because I’m talking about my exploration and fascination with my becoming. It only makes sense to use self-portraiture as a means to understand my boundaries and understand my shifts and changes, stimulations, and vulnerabilities. I think the self-portraiture in this work is so profound because, Yes, these portraits may be erotic. But they also serve a deeper function, they strip away the illusion of singularity. They dissolve the myth of separateness. In their honesty, they begin to gesture toward a collective condition. What is this body, after all, but flesh adorned in cloth no more, no less than what we all inhabit? Through the act of unveiling, I invite the viewer into a space where individuality is both exposed and transcended.
I’m not my body, although I am grateful for it, and we all have bodies and through certain engagements, more bodies are produced so it eliminates this, “unnaturalness” of individuality and it eliminates this fear of being seen while still upholding the sacredness of union and connection. Self-portraiture, then, is not merely a study of self, it is an offering. A way to return to the body not as identity, but as communion. And in that return, to remember that we are not alone or limited.
Detail of
“Wide Open”
2025
Mixed Media collage, Japanese Paper, Watercolor, Acrylic, Spray-paint, Fibers, and India Ink
72”x 48”
The importance of depicting tenderness within surrender or eroticism?
I am often told that the work is tender, that tenderness is its language, its atmosphere, its breath. And I hold that observation close because tenderness is not merely a stylistic choice, it is a necessity. It is the pulse of the world. I am trying to build a world where eroticism is not divorced from divinity, surrender is not stripped of its sanctity, and tenderness is obvious, not hidden behind labels of relationships, or so unexpected that it is hesitantly received, but so mundane and simple that it’s recognized and smiled at. Often times something that is both divine and mundane such as intercourse is spoken about in brutality or such explicitness that it almost makes a mockery of connection and the vulnerability of experiencing with another, a failure to recognize the soft, trembling power of being seen and touched and known, if even for a moment.
A friend once said to me, “Everything in your work appears loved.” And I carry that like a blessing. Because in that love is not sentimentality, it is reverence. It is the quiet suggestion that even in the exposed, even in the aching, even in the unguarded gesture there is the Divine, Spirit, God, Krishna, Ram, Christ, YHWH, or one of the many other names . Or there is especially the divine. In the most natural of things, the most mundane of things, the rawest of things, even in the most unsightly, dirty, ugly there is God. There is tenderness.
Tenderness, then, is not softness for its own sake. It is the language of divine intimacy. It is how we pray with our bodies. It is how we remember that the sacred does not reside outside of us, but moves through us, with every breath, every touch, every surrender. It’s in the withholding AND engagement. In the veil and its absence. Between one or many. Behind closed doors or put on museum walls. In Shunga, in the floating worlds of Edo-period Japan, we see eroticism rendered with elegance and reverence. In Hindu temples like Khajuraho and Lakshmana, we find bodies entwined not in shame, but in sacred choreography, sexuality as ritual, as prayer, as union with the divine. These traditions did not draw a harsh line between flesh and spirit. They honored their inseparability.
Tenderness is discovery. It is the sacred pause before the unveiling. It is the vulnerability of opening, of trusting, of becoming. To depict tenderness in eroticism is to acknowledge that the act itself can be a form of worship, an encounter not only with another but with something higher, something eternal.
Drawing Studies, with color-pencil, markers, and graphite, really anything I can put my hands on
A wonderful book I bought in Kyoto, Japan featuring Sesshū Tōyō’s master works: A Zen Buddhist priest, who is considered a great master of Japanese ink paintings inspired by Chinese landscapes, Sesshū's work holds a distinctively Japanese style that reflects Zen Buddhists aesthetics.
The Exhibition
By Master ink artist Sesshū Tōyō, he focused on landscapes never Shunga.
In the center of the book is also a moment that highlights “Spring paintings” just emphasizing his influence of ink techniques during the Edo period and how Sesshū Tōyō works were emulated not just by his successors but by many different schools. This is the same time of prolific production in Shunga.
What is so attractive about Shunga Art and how does it correlate with current world views, internal world development, or spiritual journey?
As a drawer, as a draftsman, technically I consider illustrators, comic artists, and manga artists to be the best technical drawers ever. My style was birthed from American illustrators, I was black and white for a long time, simply for the art of learning how to tell a story in its most bare and raw terms, and when I think of masters of storytelling, when I think of masters of line work, I think of Japanese illustrators and I include printmakers in illustration, as well as inhabiting the world of fine art. As a former printmaker, printmaking instructor, Printmaking is a prime resource to tell a story, so I’m taking all of this into consideration when looking at Shunga, because Shunga technically are beautiful Japanese wood carvings and ink drawings, I’m taking all of this into consideration when I’m looking at composition and how someone carving a line. The importance of line and the effort it took to stop a line, the patience, or the effort it took to make a line look fluid, curved, the slowness, the attention, the investigation, the delicacy, the paper, the softness of the fibers meeting the rigidness of the wood block, it's all so damn sexual. And then on top of that, adding in this beautiful exploration of sexuality of the body of intimacy of relationship with others and self through imagery, encompasses our day-to-day interactions. On every plane. We are constantly being penetrated by something even if it's just sun rays. Through the conversation of language, vocally, physically, mentally, spiritually, and putting it in a vehicle of paper and ink is so beautiful, natural and provocative, and incredibly honest and vulnerable and sincere. And I think where I am currently speaking to all of that is in an invitation to allow other people to be comfortable in having all of that curiosity, all of that honesty, all of that bareness be put on stage, put in gallery spaces, put on the Internet, or put out there into the world so that we continue to get comfortable with being honest. So that I continue getting comfortable with being and staying honest and authentic and free. Of shame. And to me freedom equals surrender. The context is always to the divine.
The red light was so unintentional, but perfect
On Color, Sweetness, and the Evolution of My Practice
In my notes, I wrote… colors = sweetness.
Someone once said that to me, and it lingered. Sweetness. Not in the saccharine sense, but in the way something soft and vibrant touches you unexpectedly, gently, yet deeply.
For a long time, processing reality felt like wading through noise. In order to dismantle the binary frameworks, I had inherited, this or that, light or dark, good or bad I had to collapse everything into one space, and from that dense tangle, discover the greys. Color, in those moments, felt like too much. Another layer of information, another vibration to decode. An overwhelming “Allness”, all these relationships, emotional tensions, personalities crashing into each other like conversations at a crowded party.
Life already felt impossibly complex. I wanted my art to offer something distilled. Not necessarily simple but definitely simplified. A space where texture, depth, and concept could be explored without color creating more friction. Black and white gave me harmony. It offered the illusion of agreement, everyone matched, no clashing, no extra voices in the room. It was my way of saying: “Here are the layers, the ideas, the story, but let’s not confuse things more than we need to.”
Over the past two years, something shifted. My system can now hold color—without being overstimulated or distracted by its subtexts. I no longer get lost in the endless, subtle dialogues colors have with one another. Now, I can let the intention of the piece guide me. I can sip, not chug.
Working in black and white gave me permission. It taught me allowance. Had I introduced color too soon, it would’ve shattered me. In university, I believed I was going to be a painter. I thought color was the goal. But its abundance pulled me into an obsessive pursuit of likeness, of realism. It locked me in the observational. And while that is a sacred place to be, my drawings were already representational. It left me uninspired. What I craved was the permission to let one part be grounded in the real and let another part stretch toward the surreal.
That’s the magic of black and white: it sharpens attention. It trains the eye to see through surreal lines and values rather than the fullness of hue. That’s why, I believe, black and white photography or simple line drawings have a kind of haunting clarity. Anyway, I’m rambling…
Now, color has returned, not as molasses, but as Dixie crystals. Not something heavy, sticky, or all-consuming, but something that sweetens the work a bit. That lifts it.
I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered it. But I’ve softened. Experience has mellowed the urgency. And the timing is simply… right. Color doesn’t overwhelm me anymore. It invites me. It asks gently, and I answer with the same softness. I no longer feel the need to prove or contain it. It calls, and I sip.
Soul In The Aftermath
2025
Mixed Media Collage, Paper, Watercolor, Acrylic, Watercolor, Spray-paint, Faux Pearls, and India Ink
12” x 12”
Delicate
2025
Mixed Media Collage, Paper, Watercolor, Acrylic, Mica, Watercolor, Spray-paint, Faux Pearls, and India Ink
12” x 12”
Japanese color theory book that has saved me a time or two in the color department, this is the 2nd edition.
Audience’s receptivity to the shift in content or inspiration
This is so interesting, I think there is definitely a transition happening with those that were interested in the work before to those that are intrigued by it now. I honestly didn't expect the dramatic shift, but there is something very honest about the work and honesty can be disruptive. My work isn’t political, it isn’t critical race theory, it isn’t imbedded with overcoming hardship, there is no story leading up to its freedom, there is just freedom. There is an eternal freedom that exist that others my find hard to accept, to face so explicitly, to put in their living room and look at it everyday, to even let other people see their interest in it . “What would others think if i revealed this caught my eye, and to be honest I don't even know what’s happening.”. But there are also those that are loud with enthusiasm, just in witnessing my growth, in witnessing me open up. I've been a mystery for a long time. Not intentionally just in the way an artist is an alchemist. And I’ve been mixing things in the pot and out pops…. All this penetration lol. Wow. I think its funny and find a lot of joy in the different takes. I especially love when people don’t even know what to say, I’m like “PERFECT, you are so close to actually getting it” It’s a space where I am straight up revealing conversation with myself, the world, and that beyond me, no middleman, no abstractness, not high concept art, just all heart. And I don’t even have the full reason why I was lead in this direction, but it had been beautifully fulfilling and healing and informative. It has shifted who I thought I was. It has revealed covert conditions to joy and connections, before were these underhanded seeds of righteousness and this current work has transformed into something that has sliced that to bits and grew something even more real in its wake. It has allowed me to look at various shadows and hold space and dissolve conditional love. And be penetrated by unconditional adoration. Thank you for coming to my TED talk until next time.
If you haven’t already, subscribe below, and don’t forget to add me to your address book so I don’t land in your spam, sending my love.
- Komikka Patton
P.S Like the photo above… there is something beautiful about living in a space. Old and used. It teaches how to care, how to tend to, how to get on knees with a bucket and sponge and get to work, how to spackle, and paint, re-tile, teaches appreciation. Heart space. I’ve also been doing home improvement, testing my skills. I may show next newsletter!
Also here is an updated (For now) available works list.
Drawing Studies available soon.