Tomie Ohtake explores abstract shapes in her paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints and sculptures. Her works display the lightness and technical precision of Japanese art, with light strokes, sober chromatic plays and balanced compositions. Oriental aesthetics is also expressed in the economy of elements and especially in the absence of ornamental elements in her artwork. Her works establish an intimate dialogue between oriental tradition and contemporary art.

In painting, Tomie Ohtake plays with contrasting color masses and highly expressive brush strokes. In printmaking, she works especially with silkscreen and lithographs, in which she can exploit the gestural nature of the drawing and brush strokes. She also produced sculptures for public spaces, such as Ondas (Waves) to mark eighty years of Japanese immigration and installed on 23 de Maio Avenue in São Paulo.

Tomie is a prominent presence in the Brazilian art scene. In 2003, the Tomie Ohtake Institute was inaugurated in São Paulo, dedicated to exhibitions, events and debates on contemporary art.