I don't know much about this Japanese artist, but his work grabbed me. There isn't much info about him or his work out there in the internet world, despite the fact he has had exhibitions at the Saatchi UK and Deitch N.Y.C. where I glimpsed his work a few years back. His motifs beckons my obsessions with worldwide pagan and shamanic cultures. This creature most immediately reminds me of the ritual costumes of our indigenous Hopi peoples. But, I see motifs that point to a more global sensibility, a first-world metropolis' information-fed stream of consciousness, an arousal of many different cultures moshed together disconnected from their sources. I don't know much about Shinto-ism but I wonder whether these images tinker with his own traditions. It reminds me of Korean and Nepali shamans, faces obscured by fringy things, the color and ornamentation of Mongolian shaman's costumes, the firewall in Nepali/Tibetan/Bhutanese Thanka paintings of wrathful gods. The eyes and living surface remind me of Alex Grey's transcendental work. I love the transmogrification of forms. The little girl throws me though. Something very sinister-feeling about her. Perhaps throwing the cutsie Japanese girl icon of Hello Kitty world-isms into a tail-spin. These girls seem to come up in several of his works. Click on the image for greater detail.
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