INTERVIEW: “Daily Motifs” ARTIST

[ Exclusive Interview ] ARTIST Yoshi47

Artemin: 1. Books seem to play an important role in your life. Do you have any recommendations?

Yoshi47: In my childhood, I encountered a book called “Heaven with a Demon (Akuma no iru Tengoku)” written by Shinichi Hoshi, a science fiction writer. Since then, his short stories have amused me so many times and still now. Unfortunately, he is not with us anymore, so we can’t expect any new books coming out. However, I recently met a book called “Tropics (Nettai)” written by Tomihiko Morimi, well known for Penguin Highway and The Tatami Galaxy. The way he expresses on his stories makes me feel like very close to how Shinichi Hoshi does.

Artemin: 2. I love the fruit and vegetable elements in your work—they’re both unexpected and delightful. I’m curious, when you moved to Aichi to leave the hustle and started working on your own farm, were there any interesting stories or experiences you’d like to share regarding farming?

It’s not that interesting story at all, but this is what happened when I got Lumbar Disc Hernia recently. You know that when it rains, weeds grow faster than usual and what I need to deal is cutting them off as soon as possible right? It’s like every 2 weeks usually, I am forced to twist my waist by using a weed cutter machine like swinging from right to left. I thought I was professionally handling this machine as a part of my body, and never had any problems with that. However, I guess I swung too hard this time, like I was in a zone of war game thing or killing zombies, I accidentally broke my cutter in two parts and moreover I felt a stinging pain on my back. Right after that, what I could do was walking like a bent over elderly people and one step at a time to move forward. Unluckily, I was diagnosed as Lumbar Disc Hernia. My farming mentor told me that he has never seen anything like what I did on the weed cutting machine splitting in two parts… he was like, “How the heck did you break that thing in weird way?”, and I was like, “You know what, weeds are like zombies you know… they are everywhere and never die actually, so I cut them off like so hard from right to left, and shit happened.” He took that machine and came back in 5 hours and what I saw was a reinforced zombie killing machine by adding better and stronger parts. I was like, “He knows what I’m talking about”.

Artemin: 3. Do you enjoy traveling to discover new natural landscapes or explore ecological curiosities? Is there a particular destination you’ve been especially eager to visit?

I do enjoy traveling to discover new surf points and snow mountains for sure. For the surf point, I would love to visit “THE BAY” in Imsouane, Morocco. It is also called as Magic Bay, the longest wave in Morocco. My photographer friend traveled around some of the surf spots there and he showed me all the beautiful photos of THE BAY, which you can ride more than a minute, or could be more than 2? probably 700m? damn… I need that experience. In addition to that, I am very much into Moroccan jazz music and their traditional one as well, so surfing, eating their foods, and listening their songs would be my perfect chill. For the snow mountain, going overseas would be magical for sure, but now I have been eager to visit Mount Hakkoda, Aomori, Japan. When you do a backcountry (There is a ropeway as well), climbing up to the top of the mountain, all you can see is frozen white trees. All I want is riding between those trees under the sun. I am planning to go there in this season.

Artemin: 4. Apples frequently appear in your artwork. Do they hold any special symbolic meaning?

Yoshi47:

It has a meaning of greed and desire. It’s coming from the old testament, a story of Adam and Eve. Yes, the forbidden fruit.

I am not a Christian, but when you realize that all the religions have their own story of greed and desire, it all makes sense that the world is created by human desire and greed mainly. I mean, we live because we have desire and sometimes it turns to greed. Without it, we are nothing. I know that the forbidden fruit became an apple by mistranslation of the latin word, but it doesn’t really matter if it’s apple or not. When you do farm, you realize that red fruits look so delicious right? It could be anything with ripe red color fruit. By adding this red apple on my panting, I simply want to express that we, including animals, are alive and live because of desire. It is a symbol and heart of all lives on earth.

Artemin: 5. In your installations, you use a variety of materials, from ceramics and tiles to leaves and fruits. Which material do you find the most challenging, or which one has been the most interesting and memorable for you?

Yoshi47: The tile art work was the most challenging. I collaborated with an organization called “Wall Fragment” in Aichi, Japan. I am also their art director to promote tiles to younger people who don’t use tiles in their life anymore. A tile is an industrial product which seems very easy to make. However, once you visit any factories, you see so many “FAILED” tiles in garbage boxes piled up in the corner. Some are failed because of colors,  and others are failed because of texture… Controlling the heat adjustment along with weather of a day is another level. To tell you the truth, it took me to finish this completed tile more than 2 months. First month is making a sample, then adding two weeks for design adjustment and finally showed up with the completed ones after 2 weeks again… In spite of taking so much time, there were failed productions which had bubbles on top of the color, scratches somehow, and so many tiny problems. I was going to make 5 editions of this tile art, but other 4 were failed completely. What I want to tell you is that tile is not just an industrial product but also a pack of tremendous effort of each craftsmen. It’s beautiful and worth to have any tile art at least  one for your art collection.

Artemin: 6. I like your discussion in an interview about your artistic style, particularly how you use darkness and light, as well as the shadows in smiles, to express the dual nature within each person. I personally resonate with the idea of duality as well. Could you elaborate more on this concept? Also, how do you address your own inner duality?

If you think of existence of beauty, then there is also a side of ugliness along with it. Same as clean and dirt, rich and poor, smart and stupidity… We, as human being, tend to follow only good things and ignore the other side of it, which I call it as discrimination. For example, when you see SNS, people try to be beautiful, clean, rich and smart right? Nobody wants to show others like they are ugly, dirty, poor, and stupid at all. I understand that, but followers don’t see that way. Most people only can see a good side and they worship it without realizing that they start discriminating those who are not. Then finally we loose a balance of our nature and therefore we always hate each other and fight against who are different. This is also known as Ying-Yang concept, and I believe that we all need to make a balance by thinking of both nature, good and bad, bright and dark equally. 

My own inner duality? I am always good and bad like everyone. I try not to be just cool, but also show myself as stupid man all the time. Anyways, I value this Ying-Yang concept in my life like if I spent hours outside surfing, fishing or whatever, I need to stay inside like watching movies or reading books after and vice versa… I mean, I use this power properly to make my life as calm as possible.

Artemin: 7. Your work features many elements of street art. After returning to Japan from the U.S., how do you feel Japanese culture has influenced or blended with your art?

Yoshi47: What I learned in the U.S., as a street artist (including being a graff writer), I needed to stand out more than anyone on street or in the city. I used so many colors, even neon colors, and did loud mural paint so many times. On the contrary, when I was back to Japan, I slowly blended myself into a traditional Japanese culture, like trying to be quiet, simple and pursued a true beauty of who we are. Luckily, my mother is a high rank master of Omote-senke (Japanese tea ceremony) and Ikenobo (traditional Japanese flower arrangement), and I was able to refresh myself from a punk kid to a calm adult. From loud to calm is the word of who I was and who I am now. I guess, I used to be just calm as I am now, but I needed to compete myself with other American writers and painters, so I needed to change myself to be someone who I wasn’t or I could say I was able to pull out my loudness and fighter spirit in the U.S. I see my paintings calmer and quieter but I still see a glimpse of beast part I got back in a day. I love it though. I love the way I am now.

Artemin: 8. I was surprised and intrigued to learn that the iconic smiling face in your work was inspired by Fujiko Fujio A’s The Laughing Salesman. Are there any recent anime works that have left a strong impression on you?

Yoshi47: Sorry, I don’t see any animation or manga at all. Only real things inspire me: farm, soil, bugs, animals, weeds, fruits, skies, clouds, people on a street, ocean, mountains, surfing, I mean everything around me but TV things. I see urban art in the city, but I call my art as country art for sure.

Artemin: 9. You’ve collaborated with many well-known brands like Vans, New Balance, Beams… etc. Is there a brand or other field you’d particularly like to collaborate with in the future? Why?

Yoshi47: I would love to do a book cover. I must love the novelist and its content first of all though. A label of scotch whisky. I also open to any BEER label because I am a beer boy.

Artemin: 10. In your projects with crew 81Bastards, have you found that any particular member has been the greatest source of inspiration for you? Also, are there any new types of projects you would like to explore with the members?

Every member is my inspiration. The way they express is totally different from each other. If I had to say, MHAK is the one. Dang, he is able to drink till like 5 am in the morning and he goes straight up to surfing though. Unbelievable. 

We’ve done so many projects so far including designs and everything but huge mural together. So, I would like to have offers from any countries to do a huge mural, not small one though. The bigger the mural becomes, the more we get excited. Please let us or me know if you have enough budget and huge wall for us!