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Posts tagged with Japanese art

October 27, 2009 | New Design | by Alison Zavos |

While perusing Kinokuniya Bookstore on my lunch break, I came across the book, Face Food by Christopher D Salyers. Face Food documents very elaborate Bento boxes called Charaben in which food is made to look like anime characters, animals, plants and flowers. Everyone from Piglet to Pikachu is portrayed, with foods such as broccoli, ham, carrot, cheese, egg, imitation crab meat, and more. I’m blown away by the creativity and time (anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours) that mothers — and father, sometimes — dedicate to making these works of art for their children to take to school. Read more

October 7, 2009 | New Art | by Gerry Mak |

Ikeda Manabu is the perfect example of why the arts need to be funded. How could the Japanese artist have had time to develop his style of impossibly detailed drawings while simultaneously holding down a full-time job? Read more

March 12, 2009 | New Art | by Zolton Highly recommended by the LAEM team. |

Japanese artist Ikeda Manabu creates the most detailed, expressive, and awe inspiring artwork which literally rolls across the canvas with subtle colours amidst waterless wave-like formations. Each work is constructed upon a series of intricate miniatures which play out across broader themes of unrest and movement. Read more

September 13, 2008 | New Art | by Gerry Mak Highly recommended by the LAEM team. |

Steven LaRose’s abstract, inky paintings and drawings are a modern interpretation of Japanese textile and scroll art. While not directly representational, except for some repeated flower-like shapes, LaRose’s images are like apparitions, vaguely hinting at more tangible and recognizable forms. Read more

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  • steven larose
  • steven larose

March 16, 2008 | New Art | by Gerry Mak |

LA-based renaissance man David Choe draws from toy culture and comics as much as he does from Japanese painting and conceptual high art. Read more

December 27, 2007 | New Art | by Julia Hennock |

If I had a third thumb, I’d give Kumi Yamashita three thumbs up. The Japanese artist creates stunning visual effects with lighting and simple forms, like letters of the alphabet, children’s blocks, and shoeprints. Yamashita finds the rare balance between beauty and brains.

 

Matt Duffin’s sparse illustrations of symbolically loaded objects, anthropomorphic donkeys, and children’s toys, are full of dark and blank spaces that make their subjects seem isolated and alone to the point of dread. Extreme sources of light up the drama of Duffin’s images, and despite the storybook-ish quality of his wax drawings, they convey a sense of impending doom. Read more


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It seems only fitting that New York’s first eco dining experience, Habana Outpost, is located in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Read more

Highly unwearable but aesthetically riveting, Nova Dando is making killer waves in the notoriously hard to crack London fashion scene. Perhaps the reason she is so visible is that her collections are consistently outrageous, exceptional and innovative showstoppers. Read more


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Jen Hseih’s illustrations are a wonderfully exciting explosion of colour and subtle innuendo, finely detailed windows into a world that I’ll never know. Read more

In this post-everything mash-up culture, it’s still sometimes disarming to see how a small tweak can completely change the meaning of iconic images. Read more

Back in the day, New Zealand pop absurdists, Split Enz were the finest damn Australasian band around. This track, I Walk Away, off their final album — Spellbound — is their ultimate moment: a hefty dose of pure melodic majestry, wrapped around the aching lyrics and quirky arrangements of genius frontman, Neil Finn.

There’s something quite attractively kitsch about the Lucky Dragons’ latest release, Dream Island Laughing Language. It’s undoubtedly unusual, and not too friendly on the ears, but something warm and fuzzy keeps creeping out of the broken drum rhythms and looped vocals. It’s a mish-mash of jangly folk licks, Squarepusher-style drum ‘n bass with a few Coco Rosie-esque experimental sound effects thrown in: intriguing, original, and fairly hard to describe!

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Scanners’ new single Salvation

I love this track by London based rock group, Scanners, which is off their latest album, Submarine. Having toured with acts such as The Horrors, The Wedding Present, The Charlatans, Electric Six, and Juliette & The Licks, Scanners could well blow up in 2010. Figuratively speaking, not literally. No, that wouldn’t be fun.

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Car from made ice

Forget battery powered vehicles. Cars made from ice are the future of transportation: no pollution, no honking horns, no painful rap music blasting out of souped up stereos. And if they melt, they melt. You just swim the rest of the way down the slipstream.

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The Swimmers

I live the upbeat, feel good tempo of the new single — A Hundred Hearts — from Philly group, The Swimmers. Off their latest album, People Are Soft, this song is a strangely fitting anthem for the blustery day outside.

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Alex Passapera

Alex Passapera’s dizzying pen and ink drawings are cascades of images melting into one another, often looking like contorting, mutating creatures spewing blood-like ink splatters. Read more

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Man-Tsun’s painterly images

Hong Kong-based illustrator Man-Tsun draws dark and beautiful painterly images that look like they are straight off a high-end Japanese animated film. Read more


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Thanks to Sony Australia, four Lost At E Minor readers will win personal audio prizes, including the new 8GB Walkman S series video MP3 player and the MDRXB500 Extra Bass headphones. Read more

New York-based artist Suzuki Mariko has made this handmade felt doll set of a mom and happy baby bear sitting on a sofa. At just three inches wide and two inches high, it’s perfect for your side table. It can even watch TV with you. Aw! We have it for sale in the Lost At E Minor store. Read more

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