I present to you the art of Audrey Kawasaki.
I mentioned that Takato Yamamoto’s style reminded me of Alphonse Mucha with the fantastical moons and sweeping contours. You tend to get the same impression looking at Kawasaki’s works, but much more so. Not surprisingly her website lists the Mucha-era Art Nouveau of the early 20th century as one of her influences. She puts it as a blend between Art Nouveau and Japanese manga comics. Her subjects are portrayed as sensual yet innocent, and eerily erotic.
One interesting thing about this artist is her choice of medium. She paints with oils on wood panels, leaving the grain to complement and influence the composition. The wood grains act in many ways to contribute to the painting: grains can look like hair, or the wind blowing through it. Stems of flowers can rise straight out of the wood to meet some emotional adolescent girl.
Kawasaki, born in 1982, is consider a young rising star in Los Angeles, where she resides. She studies at the Pratt Institute of New York before leaving, siting the lack of academic interest in figurative, and illustrative work in favor of conceptual art that she wants nothing to do with. Kudos to her for leaving modern art academia to give us something truly beautiful.
Audrey keeps a journal at http://i-seldom-do.livejournal.com/ where she updates fairly regularly (don’t let her title fool you). There you can see a wonderful sample of her output.
Her site is http://www.audrey-kawasaki.com/.
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