Paws for thought

Every week I try to do part of my commute on foot rather than via the Tube. At present my walk takes me past some of the nicer parts of central London, including St Paul's Cathedral, Guildhall, The Tate Modern, Gabriel's Wharf and The Oxo Tower. On good days - if I'm early enough for things to still be open - it also means I can stop off to check out anything that looks interesting.

This evening I had a chance to see the latest art exhibition at the Oxo Tower gallery. Apart from being free - a big plus - it's a very accessible space (or at least that's what pretentious art critics would call it). On display at the moment is The Art of Keisuke Kishi a Japanese artist with a very weird but oddly captivating world view.

All his 3D figures, such as Ministry of Mystic Machines are handmade with a special type of clay and are individually hand-painted. Their sizes vary from 10cm to 110cm. Viewers will be mesmerized by the precise and minute detail on these figures. In these works Kishi successfully combines traditional Japanese images and objects from the Edo period (17th-19th century in Japan) with his own imaginative ideas to create a complex yet refined mixture of human beings and period objects in a futuristic setting.

(some of them are also pretty creepy)

Since the exhibition is only on for another 12 days, I decided to find out where else I could see his work. However, having hunted for an evening I found that there's not much available online.

He has his own web site (also called The Art of Keisuke Kishi). In addition there are several online profiles, a few galleries who sell his work, (but since their sites are in Japanese I can't be certain of that) other artists whom he has influenced (not bad given that he's barely 30) and a couple of London-based bloggers who, like me, have seen the exhibition and think it's amazing.

Keisuke Kishi - Awardees' Profile at MEDIA ARTS PLAZA

more from MEDIA ARTS PLAZA

(even more from them - Kosode no Mushi)

KEISUKE KISHI

The world of Keisuke Kishi

Dream Ranch Inc. - Dream Ranch Artist Gallery ON Line

There's also a good close up of his work on his own site but a lot of the pieces I saw last night that really interested me don't seem to feature anywhere online. So in the end I just gave up and Googled his images - that turned out to give the best result.

posted at 8:27 PM
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