Tomio Koyama

Shintaro Miyake

06 - 27 Sep 2008

© Installation view
SHINTARO MIYAKE
Egypt -Path to Civilization-

Miyake's art works are drawings, sculptures and performances and any other art forms that construct one universe. His most typical style of art can be represented cutout pieces which Miyake draws girls and other forms on the cardboard or thin wooden board. Also performance is the characteristic one that he puts handmade costumes on and having performance such as live drawing.
Typical motif used in his earlier works is that the girl called "Sweet-san". Horizontally long face with small feature and extremely short body with lanky limbs looks mirthful and gives us an optimistic impression, even if they have sad appearance. Recently, idea of sweetness gains popularity among especially Japanese contemporary art. But the idea of sweetness for Miyake is just if things look positive.
His Sweet-san series is the basic form of the idea of sweetness. Since then, his Sweet-san has been changing it own form. For instance, Sweet-san puts motif of Colosseo on her head in an exhibition in Bologna, Sweet-san transforms herself to an alien in an exhibition in Germany, and Sweet-san becomes a girl who dances with a bear to the song called "Mori no Kuma-san" in an exhibition in New Zealand.
 

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