I just can’t get enough of Hikari Shimoda’s work. Using traditional media (oil and canvas), this Japanese artist creates very delicate yet disturbing compositions of eerie children. If you can, be sure to check her solo exhibition at Hellion Gallery in Portland between November 3 – 29.

SPONSOR

Anna The Red was born in Japan and now lives in New York. She makes art you can eat. Her Bento boxes feature characters from Dr Suess, Studio Ghibli and Maurice Sendak. I’m not sure whether I want to eat them, or leave them on the mantelpiece to look at until the ants claim them.

Seiko Tachibana is a Japanese born, San Francisco artist who beautifully blends the juxtapositions of her experience in her work. Taditional tendencies with a modern approach, excellent use of negative space, and the boldness to work in large formats, her art to me seems so respectful of traditions while offering a glimpse of a design oriented future.

The Japan Society is doing an exhibition that everyone should see, even if you can only experience it online. Called Bye Bye Kitty!!!, it offers fifteen artists, working in painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and video. But the point is to skewer the whole cult of cuteness in Japanese art called Kawaii. We’ve all seen this: the big eyes, the pert nose, the high voices, the spry animals.

Some say the need to be infantilized was Japan’s response to the emasculation of losing the war, being demilitarized, and having their Emperor publicly humiliated. Along comes this exhibition with a central message of ‘grow up, folks!’ The work is exciting, particularly Yamaguchi Akira’s Narita International Airport [see above], a leviathan-like painting that the medieval crazy man, Hieronymus Bosch, would have been proud of.

Whoa! A super-talented Japanese artist, who goes by the name of Sue, creates these intricate banana sculptures using her hands and toothpicks. Her portfolio spans dragon, zombie and superhero creations.

SPONSOR

Aeron Alfrey at my favorite blog, Monster Brains, just posted a series of images by late Japanese artist Takabata Sei, which he got from A Journey Round My Skull. My mind is still reeling.

Martin Kreloff is a second generation pop artist living and working in Las Vegas. His work features iconic stars of Hollywood and Broadway juxtaposed with traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e art. Much like East Meets Mae West.

I love the vibrant colours and slippery energy in Japanese artist Aki Matsumoto’s beautiful seaweed art.

I love the new works by illustrator Shigeko Okada. Her relentless quest for detailed storytelling embraces a distinct Japanese visual language. She tells a compelling story of where her imagination is coming from.

SPONSOR

Causing quite a stir in the art world this month is the Takashi Murakami exhibit at the Château de Versailles. Juxtaposing some of the greatest symbols of history with the slippery psychedelic work of Murakami, this looks like it would be a fun little trip. I bet some art history purists are having a WTF moment about now.

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.

Some of the benefits of making charaben for children include a way to relieve daily stresses, a way to simply please the kids or a way to make children eat more. But Akinoichigo, one of the leading Charaben artists in Japan, sums it up best when she says: ‘It has a magic power to eliminate all of a child’s dislikes’. Face Food is published by Mark Batty Publisher and you can read more about Charaben on the blog. Also check out the follow-up book, Face Food Recipes.

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?

Maybe he did, but the Japanese government does give artists a lot of money compared to the US because the Japanese realize a robust artistic culture is essential to a well-rounded society. Americans, on the other hand, often view artists as lazy and spoiled people who don’t know what hard work is. I wonder what they would consider easy about Manabu’s work.

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.

SPONSOR

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.

LA-based renaissance man David Choe draws from toy culture and comics as much as he does from Japanese painting and conceptual high art. Choe has a massive body of work, which includes sculptures, installations, murals, paintings, photographs, and graphic novels. Legend has it that his first exhibition at an ice cream shop stayed up two years longer than originally planned because his pieces sold faster than the ice cream itself.

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.