From coma to creation: This Japanese artist turns tragedy into hope at India Art Fair

 Hiroki Morimoto, or Goma, met with a near-fatal accident that sent him into a coma. "Once I was back, I suddenly started painting," he says.

The Japanese don’t let their broken ceramics be. Instead, they adorn the pieces with powdered gold, thus enhancing beauty. This 500-year-old Japanese tradition – Kintsugi, meaning ‘to join with gold’ – inspires one to remain optimistic when things fall apart, literally and metaphorically, and embrace the mishaps, scars, and the reality that is human fragility.

The same is exhibited by Goma, a Japan-based artist who turned a near-fatal car accident that sent him into a coma into beautiful pieces of art, which are on display at the India Art Fair in Delhi.

Hiroki Morimoto, or Goma, had been an award-winning player of the didgeridoo, a wind instrument by the indigenous Australian Aborigines before a grave accident in 2009 wiped much of his memory and sent him into a coma. Bouts of seizures and epilepsy followed.

“When I came out of coma, I suddenly started painting,” he tells The WEEK. “It was like meditation, kind of rehab,” he adds.

Goma does not paint just anything, but what he saw while in the coma, thus, bridging the gap between conscious and subconscious. He employs the technique of pointillism for the same.

On display at the booth of Galerie Geek Art, an Indo-Japanese contemporary art gallery, at the India Art Fair, is Goma’s 'Silver Flower Mandala'. In this, the artist has used various shades of grey, using acrylic to paint countless dots, which are meticulously placed to form a mandala, often employed in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shinto for focus, meditation, and trance.

The dots are placed such that the composition appears to radiate an aura of light. “After bouts of seizures, whenever I am back to reality, I always see the image of light, which is called Hikari in Japanese,” he explains. 'Hikari: Lapis' is Goma’s other artwork on display, which exhibits the same calmness, meditative aesthetics, and hope as his 'Silver Flower Mandala' does.

“All my energy comes from hope. As I couldn’t remember much then, instead of chasing memory, I kept on painting.”

Reflecting on the transformative, often underappreciated, power that art carries, the artist says, “Art gave me tremendous power to rebuild my life. If I hadn't started painting, I don’t know how my present would have been. It gave me the energy to get back to society.”