Eguchi Ayane is a Japanese artist whose oil paintings transport the viewer to candy-colored fantasy lands. Yet within these whimsical worlds, startling scenarios unfold. Juxtaposing ‘cutesy’ images of teddy bears, bow ties and charming creatures with the darker undercurrent of her narratives, the artist expresses the duality of not only her world, but ours as well. Find more of her work on Twitter.
Her imaginative paintings are the result of a multi-step process, in which the artist coats her canvas with layers of paint, which she then removes and reapplies in specific areas to create contrasting textures and hues.
Eguchi was born in 1985 in Hokkaido, Japan. She earned her MA in oil painting from the Kanazawa College of Art, and has since exhibited as part of solo and group shows in Japan, Singapore, and Switzerland. Recently, the artist was featured in a group exhibition titled Eyes & Curiosity–anomaly at Mizuma Art Gallery. The gallery described her art as an “expression of the polarities that exist within our world, of both the alluring and the unpleasant; and further, of both life and death.”
Filipino artist Leslie de Chavez explores imperialism and religion of his native country in his distinct oil paintings. These textured scenes carry both a bleakness and arresting luminosity, with a tone that tethers the allegorical to the gritty. A recent show at 