Oats with Hino, Saeki, Bernhart, and Maruo

We all begin our days in individual ways. I cook my oats, add blueberries, almond milk, and flax seed. Then I bring some books to the table.

I find inspiration (and relaxation) in nature and art. Art like the utter brilliance of the four scans featured here.

Hideshi Hino (above) never fails to inspire and provoke. His dark art is infused with madness, desire, paranoia, and hunger.

From "The Art of Hideshi Hino", published by Presspop Gallery ('07)

The sexually savage work of Antoine Bernhart explores primal desires and taboo-busting journeys of the flesh.

The artist's way with a lurid palette is intoxicating, and he pulls us into a delicious maelstrom.

From "Rope Rapture & Bloodshed", published by Mondo Bizzarro Gallery ('01)

A favorite theme of Toshio Saeki is the familial consequences of erotic journeying.

Offspring play a central role in Saeki's work, as does the orgasmic frisson delivered by total abandonment.

From "1970, Toshio Saeki"; published by Seirinkogeisha ('06)

Bleedingly good work from Suehiro Maruo, and another masterful depiction of the sensual traveler.

From "MaruoGraph Ex II", published by Editions Treville

The Bloody Erotic Frissons of Antoine Bernhart

This truly brilliant work from Antoine Bernhart is featured in Rope, Rapture & Bloodshed from Mondo-Bizzarro Press.

The French master of the sexually macabre would be at home in the company of Suehiro Maruo and Toshio Saeki.

His website is at: http://www.antoine-b.com/

To me, this is totally unfettered expression, a creative, visceral sodomization of everything that is crass, unoriginal, and safe (which is a huge portion of what passes as "daring" contemporary art).

The use of color and form is sublime, each stroke of the brush a burst of outrage.

Like a modern day Goya, he shows us our insides, and invites us to look closer at ourselves.

Few artists redraw the perimeters of the artform so boldly.

Creative Force

These beautifully disturbing and erotic images are from "1970, Toshio Saeki", a French edition of the brilliant artist's early work that was limited to 2000 copies.

My admiration for him is absolute. He marries the grotesque to the erotic and delights in busting social and cultural taboos.

He portrays lust as honestly as he portrays anger, rebellion and the consequences of betrayal.

There is no other artist like Saeki, although contemporaries such as Suehiro Maruo and Junji Ito share his fascination for the grotesque, as does Hideshi Hino, the godfather of this genre.

Saeki steps beyond the boundary because he understands that boundaries decimate creativity.

The taboo-breaking French artist Antoine Bernhart (see his "Untitled" below) has created hellishly erotic work that deserves to stand alongside Saeki for it mines a similar vein and is equally amazing.

Writes Alex Papa in the introduction to "Rope, Rapture & Bloodshed" (Mondo Bizzarro Press; 2000), an amazing catalog that showcases work from Bernhart and Japan-based Trevor Brown: "His (Bernhart's) watercolor washes him with a sexual fervor, still fresh in the memory, and when the brushstrokes become more refined, the imagination explodes into an orgiastic infernal-psychedelic riot. Everyone is welcome to join Bernhart's theatre of cruelty, where the stage is filled with traditional Japanese theatre and dance characters... It is art that is visceral and virile, an art that sweats blood and sperm. It is violent without a doubt, but Bernhart's violence is a creative force, it is never purely destructive."