Chinatsu Ban’s art focuses on kawaii elephants or human figures floating against Japanese washi paper backgrounds or in front of candy-colored stripes. She also makes sculptures for exhibitions.
Ban on her subject choice:
“These things are like talismans. It’s scary to imagine that someday I won’t exist in this world anymore. I am troubled by the urge to run away from this fear. Elephants make me feel safe. They have saved me many times.”
Masakatsu Iwamoto aka Mr (1969-) is often described as Takashi Murakami’s protege. He is known for both his sculptures and paintings, which feature the Lolita Complex and otaku culture themes prominently. Mr is also one of the more well known ‘superflat’ artists in Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki Collective.
Check out Aric Chen’s interview with Mr for the inside scoop.
Chiho Aoshima (1974-) is an influential pop artist and member of Takashi Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki Collective. Chiho has a talent for building surreal worlds. She uses Bezier curves to create CG larger-than-life teenage girls among other strange inhabitants like zombies, ghosts, reptiles and insects.
“My work feels like strands of my thoughts that have flown around the universe before coming back to materialize.” - Chiho Aoshima
This week is SUPERFLAT week on The Artsy Kappa! Over the course of the next 7 days I’ll be posting lots of interesting artists that identify with the superflat movement. Here is a little background to get you started:
Superflat started in 2000 as popular artist Takashi Murakami’s concept of postwar Japan’s Pop culture. It particularly resonates with otaku culture. The term superflat describes the 2D aspect of Japanese graphic art and animation as well as refers to the shallow nature of consumerism. Evidently, Murakami has a reductive gaze on postwar Japan’s Pop, but his tone is not gloomy at all. Superflat has since caught on as more artists explore the relationship between capitalism and Japanese pop culture.
“The world of the future might be like Japan is today─super flat.” -Takashi Murakami
I know, they are scary…
The artist Sumiyo Ito cut many dolls like barbie and rika-chan and created these child size sculptures. You can see their eyes and ears.
The artist said ”When I was a child I wanted to see the insides of the dragonflies I caught, so I would often peel off their exoskeleton.”
Now I understand why she did this.
Yayoi Kusama is one of the most exciting and prolific artists working today. With a practice encompassing performance, film-making, painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, fashion, poetry, fiction and public spectacles (or ‘happenings’) over some 60 years, this leading Japanese practitioner has been widely acknowledged as a major influence on several generations of contemporary artists.
Tomoko Shioyasu (1972-) creates her tapestries by cutting into large single sheets of paper with utility knives and soldering irons. As she plays with negative spaces her organic patterns begin to emerge. When asked about the content in her work Shioyasu replied, “Simply nature itself, particularly that which has existed over an extended period of time—rocks, trees, water channels, cells. I want to look into the essence and roots of life, making works that focus on these basic forms.”.
Natsumi Hayashi is a photographer with a talent for self-portraits, which portray her levitating her way around Tokyo. She mostly snaps these whimsical shots herself using the 10 second delay timer on her Canon EOS 5D Mk2 but when 10 seconds is too short she recruits a friend. With her amazing composition and quick feet her photographs almost make you believe she can float on air.
Riusuke Fukahori uses resin to give his painted goldfish a 3D appearance. His art, inspired by his pet goldfish, seems to come to life with every layer of resin poured. His passion for the subject is as vibrant as his art.
Kohei NAWA (1975-), who develops sculpture and spatial expressions utilizing the concept of the ‘Cell’. NAWA uses fluid materials and media, such as beads, prisms, expanded polyurethane, silicone oil, etc., as metaphors for the senses and thoughts of the information society, creating equivocal expressions of the reality of the body, perception, and a sensitivity that wavers between digital and analog.
