Respect the カラス

Up the hill from Futako river an apartment complex from the 80s with no elevators, a Sento across the street sets the perfect description of a small Setagaya neighborhood in Tokyo. My room located on the third floor of the building, a 2LDK first shared but soon one of the rooms to be my atelier. An organized mess of different tones of purple, pink, orange and turquoise, The pile of unfolded washed clothes on the right corner of the room, the Fendi, Prada, Coach, Nike bags gifted from brands and PRs near it sets the contrast between my modeling career and personal life. 2 personas that have to come together when creating artwork. When modeling or going to an event, staff, make up artists, stylists, hair dressers, PR, managers, press, there’s a whole combination of people that make sure I look not only presentable but great wearing their brands. I can “act” as myself but being in Tokyo there’s a certain standard for a young female model . Along with that there’s the core me, someone who says that they don’t care for what others say but in reality cares very much. A sensitive over thinker. This projects more onto my artwork as most of them were made out of feeling agony, solitude or even sadness. How could I ever portray pain and translate that onto a beautiful character and aura that matches the addicting feeling of being depressed? That was the ultimate goal.

Some say my work is a mixture of Tim Burton and Takashi Murakami and I wouldn’t disagree. In fact both of those artists inspire me a lot. Tim Burton specially was my favorite growing up. My very first plushes were Sally and Jack from The nightmare before Christmas gifted from my parents on Christmas when I was 8 or 9. I remember seeing his stop motion pictures and animations and live action movies and thinking the light in those movies is how I feel and how some of the lines are scribbles and not perfect. I was fortunate enough to see exhibitions of his work falling in love even more seeing that most of his prior work were sketches. This made me think that all of my sketches are artwork themselves and not just some practice.

Some say my work is a mixture of Tim Burton and Takashi Murakami and I wouldn’t disagree. In fact both of those artists inspire me a lot. Tim Burton specially was my favorite growing up. My very first plushes were Sally and Jack from The nightmare before Christmas gifted from my parents on Christmas when I was 8 or 9. I remember seeing his stop motion pictures and animations and live action movies and thinking the light in those movies is how I feel and how some of the lines are scribbles and not perfect. I was fortunate enough to see exhibitions of his work falling in love even more seeing that most of his prior work were sketches. This made me think that all of my sketches are artwork themselves and not just some practice.

 

My very first exhibitors was set when I was 19 in Shinsen at gallery SO by Shin Okishima, still until this day my guardian angel. The creative director of Stussy Japan not only believed in my modeling career but also was certain about my journey with Arts. I remember getting on the train with 40 x 30 canvases or even slightly bigger from Ichigao station to Shibuya station (about an hour ride by train) and walking fromShibuya station to the SO Gallery for about 15 minutes up the hill carrying the canvases and a bag full of glass framed A3 drawings. This was also the first time I had made my own business cards, just for the exhibition. A lot of friends from school, teachers, co workers at the modeling side, my father and some people who were my followers showed up. It was overwhelming to see that so many people were keen to see my artwork.
With contacts that I’ve had I managed to get in touch with many press and report this experience for the media like hype beast, champ magazine etc.

Doing the first exhibition was a gate to catch the attention of other art medias leading me to do a second solo exhibition with Tsutaya group T site at Shonan
After that there were about 2,3 more solo exhibitions followed by the start of a live painting spree at night events around Tokyo.  The idea of painting live and not having to talk to others but having them watch me work on somethings sounded like the most suitable situation for me to be at a social setting outside of fashion. One of my biggest goals on the bucket list is to make bigger pieces, thought live painting would be good practice for that initially. Very rarely I’ll make abstract pieces but they’re just as necessary as the characters or scales I paint. To refresh. To explore if I like any other colors at the time.