Challenging Tradition with Neo-Nihonga: Hisashi Tenmyouya
Hisashi Tenmyouya born in Tokyo 1966, is a Japanese contemporary artist who specializes in what he calls "Neo-Nihonga".
Starting off as an art director at a record label, he decided to pursue his own dreams and challenge Japanese traditional boundaries.
Nihonga is one of Japan's most traditional art forms, with a long history said to have began in the 1800s. Hisashi adds his own twist to his paintings, adding a futuristic and "neo" feeling to the traditional style. He describes his style as "BASARA", which he says is the opposite to traditional Japanese "Wabi-Sabi" and "Zen" art forms.
Some of his works include the Gundam-inspired "RX 78-2 Kabuki-Mono", "Contemporary Japanese Youth Culture Scrolls" featuring a graffiti covered Buddha, and "Football" which was created for the 2006 Germany FIFA World Cup as an official poster.
Tenmyouya's persona is still very mysterious to this day, even though he has been in the industry for a while now. What we do know is that Hisashi not only works as an artist, but is also a curator, and still holds exhibitions to this day.
You can check out more info about him on his official website. But for now, check out some of his crazy works above.
