Shohei Otomo Japan

SHOHEI's work is political, stark and uncompromising in its strident comments on contemporary Japanese (read international) culture. Familiar and beloved symbols of Japan's much admired traditional culture cavort with icons of the contemporary age, a tense, dark melange that is nonetheless beautiful. The images are distinctly Japanese yet the conformity of globalization renders them intimately recognizable.

Described sometimes as a cyberpunk artist, SHOHEI's work straddles the worlds of illustration, art, anime and punk. Emerging from a uniquely Japanese background and art tradition, SHOHEI transcends cultural barriers and presents a chilling picture of an all-too-present Armageddon. In a rare interview in English, SHOHEI cites the cinematic influences of samurai movies - such as Kurosawa's renowned Seven Samurai - and spaghetti Westerns, as significant. Certainly his characters have the immediate and visceral appeal of the moving image.

The influence of the grand and internationally acknowledged Japanese graphic tradition of ukiyoe is manifest in his work. SHOHEI establishes his artistic credibility and pedigree by consciously placing himself in a direct line of significant artists starting from the renowned ukiyoe artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), reaching abroad to Picasso and including SHOHEI’s senior peers Masami Teraoka and Aida Makoto. Termed ‘creative borrowing’ by Western academia, this is a time-honoured Japanese way of acknowledging artistic masters and identifying with a longstanding tradition. Integral too to Japan’s artistic tradition is the use of symbols as a secret language accessible only to a group of connoisseurs with a shared subculture. Seemingly innocuous images can have an entirely different meaning for the inner circle. 

SHOHEI’s work abounds with symbols, some familiar, others less so. Beyond the visual world he so masterfully creates, lies a hidden world of discovery.