The Grotesque Beauty of Shintaro Kago

I've been hanging out for The Art of Shintaro Kago (Timeless; November 2012) for quite a while, so I'm happy to report that it is a thing -- and I do mean THING -- of beauty.

My scans, which are mere segments of the plates, do not do justice to the sheer size and sizzle of this volume. It is a 30 x 40 cm venture across 35 vividly illustrated pages. Even the above cover scan is a mere bottom third of the full illustration.

Kago, a controversial artist who shares thematic concerns and rich, lurid aesthetics with the likes of Suehiro Maruo and Toshio Saeki, is not as well represented book-wise as those artists.

He is, however, a little infamous for his fine line of grotesque toys such as:

Flying Head Monster (described as 'Frying' on the website)

Daruma Girl

Dismembered Body

Cannibal Man's Dessert

Seppuku Girl

Dead Corpse (slightly redundant title)

and Accidental Cat.

Kago has many obsessions, and headlessness (dismemberment also) is surely a primary one. His use of color and texture is quite stunning, as is an underlying sense of paranoid outrage.

To grab this special limited edition from and published by France's Timeless (www.timeless-shop.com), act fast!, for only 300 copies have been printed.

This exciting publication by an on-line distributor of fascinating art reminds me somewhat of Last Gasp's oversized Toshio Saeki publication of 2009, Onikage. The same level of passion and perfection infects every page.

Saeki Toshio's ONIKAGE

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know I love the mind-bending work of Saeki Toshio.

In the most peculiar and surprising ways, he sings my song.

Clearly, he sings the songs of others, too, because he is somewhat of a cult phenomenon.

His latest collection of previously unseen work, Onikage, has been published by San Francisco-based Last Gasp. It is a stunner. Also stunning is the size (it's huge) and the low price.

I'm not home much lately, but when I am, I eat my my morning oatmeal with blueberries and bee pollen crystals while leafing through these enchanting works of a deeply fertile imagination.

This image above, which echoes Todd Browning's Freaks, is one of my favorites for what it suggests and what it celebrates.

These scans are merely sections of larger pieces. Due to this book's size, it is impossible to fully scan the pages with a standard scanner. I only include these here to give you a taste of the magic to be discovered when you purchase a copy of this sensational book.

There is a rare interview with the artist and several overlays which illustrate his unique working methods.

"In the modern world, where one rarely stops to think about the truth behind the moment, you might enjoy it if you take a peep at my mysterious and strange illusions. To those who frown at them, I want to place the drawings right in front of your face and ask if you really disapprove. I'm always thinking how wonderful it would be to give shape to psychological pictures which everyone hides and holds deep within them."

Saeki Toshio
March, 2009