Flowers Ichiban Blue Artwork

This piece is from a series, "One Hundred Views of Japan," inspired by imagery and experiences from a visit to Japan in 2010. This piece within the series--and indeed most of my work--is informed by my interest in Japanese woodblock printing, traditional cel animation, old-school paste-up graphic design techniques, pop art and street art. I grew up in NYC in the 1980s, where I was exposed to intensely expressive and boldly graphical pieces on walls and subway cars throughout the city. I studied Environmental Design at Harvard University, where I had the good fortune of learning from internationally-acclaimed designer and painter, Toshihiro Katayama. My artist name is in fact an homage to him. I hope viewers will appreciate the delicate balance between chaos and order, beauty and grittiness, organic and manufactured--the stuff of real life, layered and rendered in exuberant color. It is a layered composition, combining collage, hand painting and stencil work. Media include heavyweight printmaking paper, acrylic, sumi ink, newspaper, manga and resin on deep-cradled (2") wood panel. It is wired on the back and ready for hanging.