Transcending painting to reflect values in art
Our mission at OVER ALLs is to use the murals that we paint throughout Japan to empower people as creators. OVER ALLs is a Tokyo-based art company that creates custom murals and art projects for businesses, transforming corporate values and spaces into creative expressions.
Our relationship with Sompo Group began with a mural that we produced at Sompo Japan’s Shinjuku head office building illustrating SOMPO’s Purpose. That led to our commission for the art gifted to SOMPO Awards 2024 winners.
More about the SOMPO Awards
The SOMPO AWARDS is a Sompo Group-wide award program that extends beyond business segments. By supporting every employee’s purpose, the Sompo Group is closer to making its own a reality. A member of the SOMPO Awards 2024 Project Office explains how the program is “Connecting colleagues through one another’s cheers.”
Without exception, we research the background and interview the people behind our projects. We spoke with the SOMPO Awards Project Office and the winning teams to hear about their initiatives and the stories behind them. What they told us projected intangibles such as enthusiasm, passion, and character in the way art does, and this resonated with us. Making visible such intangibles is the essence of art. So together with the awardees, we set out to capture the enthusiasm, passion, and individual character that they put into their award-winning initiatives.
Capturing the moment in art
Painting people as our subjects was given, but we wrestled with how to structure the composition. Interviews with awardees and numerous sketches refined our ideas. We resolved to highlight the uniqueness of each team but wanted mostly to convey their shared desire to contribute to others. We hope that everyone can look closely at their faces and facial expressions.
Caring for others is where it all begins
When we asked awardees what prompted them to apply for the award, most said encouragement from peers. The word “challenge” characterizes the SOMPO Awards, and it seems that applicants’ peers recognized before the applicants how challenging were their initiatives. This is the Sompo Group at its best — colleagues acknowledging and championing each other’s earnest work for customers and coworkers and sharing motivation and achievement.
We’ve painted numerous Japanese firms’ corporate purpose, and we’ve encountered countless qualities unique to Japan: mindfulness of others, omotenashi(warm hospitality), and underpinnings of world-class technical skills. Humility is a highly valued virtue in Japan, so Japanese tend to shy from promoting oneself. We at OVER ALLs, however, believe that the qualities we’ve noted are worth sharing worldwide.
It’s our goal to depict on the global stage the essence of thriving Japanese companies, and dream of authoring a mural in heart of New York. In the same way that the Sompo Group continues to take on challenges and expand its insurance business in Europe and North America, we too wish to tackle the challenge of expanding awareness of Japan’s strengths globally.
