Jun Tomita is a Japanese textile artist who has worked with the traditional dyeing technique of kasuri for over two decades, while adding his own rich and contemporary interpretation. Kasuri, the Japanese word for ikat (which is derived from the Malay-Indonesian word mengikat, meaning "to tie or to bind"), has been popular in Japan since the 17th century. The technique was established much earlier, but was used only in very special circumstances on clothing worn mainly by the aristocracy.
In this piece, Tomita employs a warp kasuri where only the warp threads have been bound and dyed. After these steps, he splashes dye on the warp threads and then begins the weaving process. As Tomita weaves, a blurring occurs at the junction of different colors, creating subtleties of colors within colors and a pattern that permanently captures the creative process.