Day out with krishna Part 3

After the wonder that is the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, which by the way I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone interested in art and photography, we headed to Mitaka by train and the Studio Ghibli Museum by bus.

Studio Ghibli make the most wonderful anime films (my faves are My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Kiki's Delivery Service) and we'd both been looking forward to the visit for ages! The museum's really friendly and interesting, full of things to do with the films and studio. There are lots of original sketches, drawings and paintings, as well as interactive models of scenes from some of our favourite films. The bouncing Totoro's in particular were fantastic. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with epilepsy though because of the flashing lights.

Phew, what a day out!! :) xxx

A day out with krishna Part 2

After the Mika Ninagawa exhibition, which was far bigger than we'd expected, we went upstairs to view the exhibition from the permanent collection. The exhibition is called Black & white and features two Japanese artists, Isomi Teruo and Ozaku Seishi. It was a a strange contrast to the previous exhibition, as the title suggests it was completely monochrome and the subject matter was dark, moody, sometimes mythological in tone, sometimes nightmarish. The work of Isomi Teruo consists of woodcut prints where the grain of the Wood can be plainly seen and adds texture to the work. Out of the 2 artists his work was my favourite, they were a little less dark and were quite haunting.

Ozaku's work was the darker of the two, he works with etching and his imagery reminded me a little of Hieronymus Bosch.

The 3rd and final exhibition at the gallery was by a young emerging artist called Mashimo Yuki. I couldn't get any information in English about this artist so I'm not even sure of the gender but I'm guessing female. The 1st picture on this post of the girl and flowers, is by Mashimo. Her style is intricate, detailed and beautiful. I imagine each drawing takes a long time to complete. The above drawing was small but some of them were over a metre in length. This is most definitely a name I'll be looking out for in the future, the work is exquisite. I apologise for the lack of pictures but photography was not allowed in the gallery and I couldn't find anything to buy from the gallery shop:(

I got inspired enough seeing this artists work to go out today and buy some proper drawing pens, I'll let you know how it goes!

xxx

A day out with Krishna - Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery and Studio Ghibli

Yesterday Krishna San and I went to Tokyo for the day to see some art. A friend Of Krishna's had recommended the exhibition at Tokyo Opera city Art Gallery and we were not disappointed. The main exhibition, Earthly Flowers, Heavenly Colours, is by a Japanese photographer called Mika Ninagawa. It was a full colour riot for the eyes. The first few rooms focused on big prints of flowers and some landscape, I particularly liked the cherry blossom pictures. I thought that flowers were all we were going to see but then we walked through into another room (all rooms had heavy curtains separating each section so that each room and the contents therein was a complete surprise) and were stunned by the huge and beautiful portraits. Again very brightly coloured and highly decorative.

I'm already regretting not buying the book from the gallery shop, so next time I'm in Tokyo I'll get it and post some more pics! xx