Ceren Aksungur’s Unsettling Mixed-Media Illustrations

The late artist Tetsuya Ishida is still making an impression with his nightmarish paintings of young men in a state of disfigurement. His work has been described as a surrealistic portrayal of every day Japanese life. Of the 180 works he left behind after his death by a train accident in 2005, nearly all include self-portraits. Ishida’s images most certainly link his own childhood experiences with his observations of society. As a child growing up in Japan, Ishida felt constant pressure to meet the standards of young men his age, and was encouraged to study academics over art. Paintings, such as “Prisoner” (1999) which portrays a young boy growing beyond the capacity of his school walls, reflect on his memories. In fact, there are several iterations of the same image, pointing to the extremity of his frustrations as a student. See more of his work after the jump.