HF: What is your strongest memory of childhood? Do you remember the first time you realized you could draw?
KT: I remembered a long time ago when I first drew it. The strongest memory of my childhood was war, that was when the U.S. Air Force B-29 flew over Tokyo and threw the entire city into flames. I escaped to the shelter of the air strike and stared at such a desperate view, feeling the heat almost burning my face, so I always covered my face with a wet towel and endured my fear as if it would continue.
In my childhood, I was always scolded by my mother since I drew comics all day. I am not interested in things except watching movies and painting pictures. I’ve seen more than 500 movies a year, but most of them are B movies. The heroes in Western movies, charming beautiful blonde women, gorgeous diners, and animations like Mickey Mouse, Betty Boop, Popeye, and more, reinforce my admiration for American culture, which has had a big impact on me and even my current work.
HF: You are considered a pioneer of post-war Japanese pop art. Do you find that Japan’s pop art is different from the rest of the world? How do you explain your affinity to work in this artistic style?
KT: In my early stages, I was influenced by us and British pop art, especially Andy Warhol’s methodology, which allowed me to cross the boundaries between completely overwhelmed media and thus devote myself to making experimental films and art books. Many of the pop art works in American art magazines I found in bookstores imported from Tokyo have strongly stimulated my creativity. Compared to the exquisite expression of pop art in the United States or the United Kingdom, Japanese pop art seems to be closely related to local issues.
HF: As an artist with so many influences, do you have a specific artist or style that you most recognize? Which mediums do you choose to use these days?
KT: The art I agree with is Giorgio de Chirico and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, in Japanese art, painters from the Edo era such as Soga Shohaku, Itoh jakuchu and Hasegawa tohaku. In particular, Yakugu’s work is so so sophisticated and profound that it always overwhelms me.
The most inspiring me was the B movies that were in us. For example, Roy Rogers is wearing a shiny outfit decorated with a White House trigger, as if moving pop art. Jane Russell’s scene almost reveals her breasts and lies on the hay in a charming position, which is imprinted in my mind and will never be erased. The mystery and fantasy of creatures in the black lagoon; the skyscrapers rang out in the footsteps of Lauren Bacall’s high heels. These are my inspiration.
The materials I use are acrylic paints, canvas, holes, crayons, etc., so there is no special material, but sometimes I break the glass into pieces and place the pieces on the surface of the canvas to create an effect by reflecting light. My work is inspired by comics, pornographic books, tabloid magazines, filled with trivial scandal articles, portraits of murder or photos of catastrophic crime scenes placed in newspapers, i.e. not very high cultural content.
My work is inspired by comics, pornographic books, tabloid magazines filled with trivial scandal articles, portraits of murder or photos of catastrophic crime scenes placed in newspapers…
