Nicole Beckley is having a solo show at Studio Zero in Arai city, opening tomorrow afternoon. Having lived in Japan for 3 years, Nicole is drawing on her experiences to convey something personal and unique through her art. I’m really looking forward to checking it out over the coming weekend. The show will be running for a month from Saturday 15th of May till June 16th. For more information check her facebook page and rsvp.
From today I will be spending a few days in Kanazawa city, Ishikawa prefecture. It’s a beautiful town, often compared to Kyoto for it’s traditional gardens and historic buildings. It’s also home to a very healthy and active art scene and international gallery or two; The biggest and most attractive being the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. Luckily there are some great things happening this month, so I hope to be able to see and eventually report on when I get back. In the meantime, feel free to browse this collection of dog portraits a friend kindly brought to my attention.
There are some very interesting things going on in the art news roll at synapticstimuli. It’s a contemporary mixed media smorgasbord (with equal helpings of traditional and modern), and well worth a look.
It’s geeky. I know. But I’m sure there were a whole lot more kids out there like me that used to spend hours just looking at the cool monster art in the control booklets. Here is the latest version. Can’t wait to open up that box and read those instructions!
It was golden week in Japan this week, which means big city max exodus, traffic jams and no quick fix lunches at the 7/11. Fortunately, there was something interesting on the TV to fill the void where my 250yen mixed sandwiches ought to have been.
Animax was running Mononoke; not the Ghibli masterpiece, but the Toei animated series from 2007. A few years old, but still fantastic; A really stylish and unique (be it computer generated) horror anime worth a look, especially for it’s art: Looking just like a moving Utagawa Hiroshige ukiyo-e wood block print (the ones famously reproduced by Van Gogh). The opening sequence doesn’t do the series much justice, but a if you can find a copy somewhere, somehow, give it a look.