Fantastic Anthology Portraits
Broken pieces of something shaped like an animal bone. When these pieces are put together, a melancholy portrait-like painting appears. "ANTHOLOGIAN" is an exhibition by stencil artist Kansuke Akaike, who imagines and attempts poetic expression from small pieces of plastic washed up on the beach.
This is a word coined by Akaike, combining "anthology" and "humanity." Akaike, who lives in the Shonan area of Kanagawa Prefecture, picks up trash on the beach on a daily basis, and describes it as "an instantaneous reaction to the shining individuality on the wide beach, like picking flowers." The series, which was inspired by the word "anthologia," originally means "picking flowers" or "gathering flowers," will be on display.
"Plastic pieces that had outlived their usefulness and were discarded, deteriorating and changing shape over time. I felt a poetic charm in these helpless objects. These are fantastical portraits of the Anthology members, who, though distorted, carry stories and are given a second life."
Born in Kyoto in 1974. Influenced by his father, who was a Buddhist sculptor, and his mother, who made bags, he was familiar with handicrafts from an early age, and as he was close to the cultural heritage of Kyoto, he aspired to become an artist. In his adolescence, he was fascinated by the attitude of punk rock, which broke the stereotypes, and aspired to pop art, a counterculture to traditional art.
Inspired by the works of Andy Warhol and Jamie Reid, Akaike started to create his own silkscreen and collage works outside of his major at Musashino Art University. When the silkscreen equipment that had been his production base up until then could no longer be used, he "had no choice" and chose to use stencils. Akaike "discovered" what he considered to be the true gem of art, and has refined it into his current style of finishing each piece of work using only stencil techniques.
The painterly qualities of stencils that exclude improvisation
Since then, he has taken up impulsive collage as his main style, driven by the DIY spirit of punk and street culture, and has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and overseas, as well as collaborations with advertising agencies and national brands. However, in recent years, surrounded by the sea and mountains, he has begun to take the time to observe everyday life one by one and get inspiration from it.
"When I used to live in Minamiizu, the scenery looked beautiful in various ways, and my motifs became fresh to me. Rather than looking at things with the intention of creating a painting from the beginning, I started to want to simply express what I found beautiful."
From there, he started to try to minimize the improvisational and repetitive nature of the stencil technique and to express tableaus (paintings) using spray paint, which is how he created the Anthology series that he is presenting today. This was triggered by him picking up trash on his way home from surfing.
"There's an unspoken rule that when you get out of the water and carry your surfboard home, you pick up trash with your free hand. Since you can't pick up everything with one hand, you have to be selective, but I thought the feeling of picking up what you thought was clean was interesting."
He says that as he brought the things he had collected home and looked at them, he began to feel a deep attachment to each one. He drew them, arranged them, and combined them to create abstract paintings. He had the feeling that this would be a new realm for Akaike himself.
The surreal future beyond the regenerative society
"When I see things with these misshapen shapes, I wonder how much time has passed for them to become like this? I feel a strangeness and melancholy in the fact that something that was forcibly produced to fit the speed of modern life has been rejected."
"The errors that arise from things like misalignment in silkscreen or stencil printing are fascinating. I'm fascinated by the beauty of chance, and the things that people dismiss as outside of common sense."
The sublime impression that can be felt from the painting, such as the humanity that seeps out of the material and the use of shading to express emotion, gives the impression of being reminiscent of the realism that arose mainly in 19th century France, particularly the works of Jean-François Millet, who depicted poor peasants.It can be said that Akaike's plan to make stencil art, an art of repetition and improvisation, into a lasting form of painting has been fulfilled.
This anthology describes the trash on the beach as "the complaints of modern people," and depicts the lies of justice touted in society, such as SDGs and a regenerative society, and the melancholy of people who are struggling outside of what is considered common sense, with the humor peculiar to portraits preserved in photographs and paintings. This exhibition will also feature the trash that became the motif of the work, as well as drawings that were copied from it.
The street art technique of hijacking social systems and contexts and shifting values brings to light a surreal vision of the future beyond the "regenerative society." This is a realistic depiction by Akaike, who believes in the potential of stencil art.
