Vessel of Souls

Mikuo KONOKI (b.1937)

Famous Japanese painter, sculptor, glass painter, and muralist, has 2 private art museums in Japan and has successively produced large-scale murals all over Japan. He was once the representative of Japanese PUBLIC ART. He has won many awards such as the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology Award, etc.

Mikuo KONOKI ‘s creative medium is constantly changing, and clay, glass, scrap iron (Ganta), etc. are brought back to life in his hands. After the earthquake on March 11, the artist devoted himself to creating a series of works with poetry, painting, and sculpture as the main body, which were serialized in Art Monthly for half a year. The artist takes “the dignity of life” as the theme, only wishing that the subject with life will be respected, nurtured, and shine. His works are full of vitality, with a “clumsy” air, like a kind of wisdom, reminding everyone who is anxious about life. Laughter and sadness, anger, despair and hope, charity and awe, are expressed like a poem, passionately telling the “hymn of life”.

Mika SHIMAUCHI (b. 1987)

Mika Shimauchi is eager to touch the reality of this world and wants to leave a trace that can be touched. As artists’ most commonly used material, clay can be directly touched with hands, evoking childhood memories and touching real sense. In particular, the exploration of life and death is one of the themes that the artist cares most about. She believes that this is very important to understand who we are and how we should live. Unfortunately, even without such thinking, we still live in this world.

The artist develops motifs from her own landscapes and exhibits them as sculptures and various works. The imperfections visible within the works are a motion to humorously represent the irony of the over-efficiency of our lifestyles under the weight of globalization created by mankind, and yet how we are unable to fully adapt.

Ryo Mizuno (b.1970)

Mizuno created countless mysterious creatures with pencils and ink pens, these creatures seem to flow naturally from his hands. The speedy images are so smooth that exceed the viewers’ imagination as if they can feel the tone of the picture gradually darkening. The viewer is forced to use all his senses to capture the details that emerge from the deep darkness. The artist maintains a calmness towards the real world, but in another parallel space like a dream, he is full of fantastic imagination, where he is God, who dominates the bodies, emotions, thoughts, and energy of these flourished creatures.

In addition, Mizuno completed 1000 “Funny Dolls” through nearly three years of hard work, with the characteristics of the Japanese manga “Kimokawa (a bit disgusting and a bit cute)”. The facial features of Funny Dolls, the big heads have been parodied and played to the extreme, and each living individual is fresh and full of personality. The artist sets the birth time of Funny Dolls in the post-80s generation, and the work fully interprets the youthful memories of the post-80s generation, fragility, loneliness, confusion, homebody, parody, unconventionality, all the dreams that children have, and the growth stories they experience.

Maiko KOBAYASHI (b. 1977)

Maiko Kobayashi has created a unique and lovely creature, pale and soft, as if threatened by invisible forces and feeling helpless, but she retains a light of courage and hope in her heart. This creature is like a vessel of the human soul, into which the artist puts delicate emotions and affectional connections with others. In addition to studying characters, the artist also invests a lot of time in the selection of materials and painting skills, constantly breaking through to adapt to richer changes and layers. The artist grew up in Japan’s “ACG” and “Hikikomori” cultural background, the image she created is quite universal. With the deepening of her creation, this image has its own unique “lovely philosophy”, which in turn affects her contemporaries.

Since 2009, Maiko Kobayashi has held nearly 20 solo exhibitions in Europe, China, Japan, South Korea and other places. In recent years, her works have been sought after with remarkable achievements, in the international auction market. Meanwhile, several European and Japanese publishers continue to introduce her works.

Kyoko SHINDO  (b.1982)

As an artist, Kyoko Shindo is also a mother, the weight of the family, the upbringing of children, and the balance of female identity in family and social life are inseparable from her creations. Shindo is good at observing life. Taking family and secular life as the background, he injects the relationship between people and the subtleties of emotions that occur in daily life into the picture, giving it a narrative.

The technique of Shindo’s oil painting has the characteristics of watercolor. Even if it is oil painting, you can still feel the fluidity and clarity of the picture. She abandoned the heaviness of traditional oil paintings and reconstructed a freehand, agile expression with a sense of time. The characters in her works are full of vitality, and the brushstrokes seem to be light, but they are just perfect.