A pregnant woman whose body is entwined tightly with octopus tentacles and a Hokusai-like splashing wave as background; a girl standing still and giving a detached look while a dog’s head disappears right up her skirt obviously doing something there… some of the slightly odd but nevertheless luring scenes depicted by Yuji Moriguchi. This Tokyo-based artist blends a frank but still innocent looking eroticism with delicate traditional Japanese painting, spicing it up with contemporary manga. So for today, PingMag visits Moriguchi at his home, an old house in Taito Ward. While sitting in front of Japanese paper sliding doors painted with his own marvellous signature sailor-suited school girls, Moriguchi introduces us to his fantasies:
Written by Chiemi
Translated by Kevin Mcgue
As you graduated from the manga department at Kyoto Seika University, it’s been always your favourite?
I always liked it and I would doodle manga characters, but I was actually more devoted to reading than drawing it. Since it was hard to get into the Western painting or Japanese painting departments, I thought that manga was something that I could do, and so just started drawing.
What were you especially interested in then?
When I was a freshmen, I would go to the zoo and work on animal studies. I really loved the gap in the potential ferocity of a hippo’s muscular body and the calm look on their faces. Also, I attended a seminar of a teacher named Miyotaro Sagawa, who had us work on human figure studies and live sketching rather than manga drawing.
The housewife and her favourite vegetables: Humorous eroticism with “Early Afternoon Affair” (left). On the right, “Incantation.”
Did you already develop your significant style at that time?
No. I wasn’t working with colour back then but was doing monochrome drawings in pen: people and views of the town. Often, Japanese drinking houses and old men appeared in my early works as well. Then twelve years ago, I came to Tokyo and my works started expressing a sense of ennui. The first such painting was this one [below, left].
One of the first paintings with a sense of ‘ennui’ Moriguchi created after moving to Tokyo.
And at that point you also started with girls as motif…
These girls create a desire to be near them, at the same time exuding an atmosphere that it is impossible to actually be close to them. Every pictures tells a story. Actually, I was influenced by the Maetel anime of the Galaxy Express 999 manga. When I was a kid, I would draw pictures of Maetel to settle arguments with my older brother about which of us was better at drawing.
…and those stories are your fantasies?
Yes, things I just happen to encounter without realising. I like these little moments we experience within our daily lives, and so I build these stories up while I creating the works.
In your paintings, you take scenes of ordinary life and highly stylise them. Please explain a bit.
After I moved to Tokyo, I had more opportunities to see Ukiyo-e and traditional Japanese paintings, and I realised that I love these art forms. I had always loved Hokusai, but never had the chance to study his works. Eventually I thought that I might be able to mix manga with traditional elements from Japanese paintings.
For sure, your work really does look like a fusion of manga and Japanese painting. By the way, flowers started to appear in many of your recent works. What’s your thing with them…?
Flowers are kinky, aren’t they? They have a poisonous quality besides a symbolic meaning. (Laughs)
“A Distant Summer Day” was originally made for a friend as gift to celebrate his wife’s pregnancy. When Moriguchi realised afterwards he wanted the painting for himself, he re-did it later with different colours.
How do you work usually, are you always scribbling down ideas in your sketchbook?
I usually sketch on the back of copy paper, and then trace a first draft. I want to clean up the lines, so the work progresses in stages and I work on the detailed areas. Only then do I decide on the colours.
A rough pencil sketch of a lying beauty. Next the composition will be transferred to tracing paper.
When did your paintings get more erotic?
More and more, I was commissioned to do erotic works. These days, often it is the client who decides the themes. By the way, I don’t only do painting, but also manga under the pen name “Namida Zubon.” (Laughs)
”Namida Zubon,” literally meaning “Tears Trousers” - what an awesome pen name! Also, next May, you will be participating in the group show “Japanese Fantasy and Eroticism” at the Metallos Gallery in Paris. What will the French think of your erotic pieces?
France is the country of the escargot, so I am sure they will understand! (Laughs)
Innocence: A dog disappearing up the skirt… “Lightheartedness” (left) and an escargot in a peculiar position in “The Sound of Rain” (right), both commissioned by “SM Sniper” magazine.
two versions of a girl’s body delicately tangled up in tentacles: Moriguchi’s “Veranda” (left) and the more drastic “Tide” (right).
One final question: Octopuses often appear in your works. Why is that?
I just love them! (Laughs) They are kind of kinky, I think. I would love to do a whole exhibition on the theme of octopuses some day.
Ahem, I don’t think I can ever look at an octopus the same carefree way again, when I see one sliced up the next time I’m at a sushi shop… Yuji Moriguchi, thank you!
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Many Japanese like to mixing their art with something really Erotic. I guess it's because "sex" already part of their culture. I'm not saying the painting is bad...i feel it's really cool..i like! So JOlin! go AHEAD go SM!!! hahah =p..just kidding
d4e reach penang tomorrow
I am waiting for the 3D glasses to come...
Check out Wanderlust in 3D!!
Make your own 3D glasses!
d3j
haha a website to scold all the kia su and kia si boss in singapore! hhahaha..
dear! ken! open fire now..haha
>>bitch up ur boss<<
d4e Morning
Advertising Agency: McCann Erickson, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Copywriters: Samantha Hepburn, Huang Ean-Hwa, Szu-Hung Lee
copywriting really important, honestly, i cant write those word out..
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d5k
seriously..you 3 die where? ah ping still have msn..lao a and miss j leh? wat happen to you two?? anything happen in penang? really that busy meh?? should i call 999, report missing old aunty, Japanese siao po, and sausage mouth?
d4e morning!
In 1916, the Keds brand was introduced by the U.S. Rubber Company as the first national athletic and lifestyle footwear brand. At this time, the shoes were called sneakers, a term invented in late 1916 by Keds advertising agency because the rubber soles made the shoes quiet. Worn by fashion icons, leading actresses, Olympic soccer players and scores of National and International tennis champions, Keds has been a symbol of classic style and performance innovation throughout the 20th century.
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>>web<<
d4e all die where
Annother new ads for SONY after last ads PLAY DOH, This time Fallon make whole miami city become a foam city .very nice
D5k
Untraceable is a 2008 thriller film which stars Diane Lane, Joseph Cross, Billy Burke, and Colin Hanks. It was directed by Gregory Hoblit and is distributed by Screen Gems. The film is a social commentary on Internet schadenfreude.[2]
Set in Portland, Oregon, the film involves a serial killer who rigs contraptions that kill his victims based on the number of hits received by a website ("www.killwithme.com") that features a live streaming video of the victim. Millions of people log on, hastening the victims' violent deaths. Lane plays the protagonist, a cybercop named Jennifer Marsh, who pieces the mystery together, at great risk to the personal well-being of herself and her family.
**/***** from me Untraceable
D2r
This call Hok kee MEe but it's fried a....very weird taste!
Duck rice with black rice a..-_-''
Yong taofu -_-'' if soup, then normal. if dry, it's like that...full with sweet sause...still ok because i like sweet sause...
This is Laksa! Laksa not penang laksa is KARI MEE!!! ARR!!!!miss penang food....aikk
d4e
孩子by cheers
林宥嘉-愛(百人初選)(below)
YOGA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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must support yea!! may gonna release his first album...
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d6j
Here’s a brilliant bit of physical motion graphics from Marion Bataille. I can imagine a whole series of these, one for numbers, maybe one for colors…
ABC3D is due out this October from Roaring Book Press. Preorder here. Oh, and the soundtrack for this demo movie is “Roll On, Mississippi, Roll On” from The Boswell Sisters.
http://motionographer.com/2008/03/24/abc3d-by-marion-bataille/
d1p