Aki Tsukamoto
1989 born in Japan. After graduating from Musashino Art University in 2014, Aki worked in Tokyo, mainly
making screen prints.
2016 was a turning point, as Aki’s artistic practice shifted after he moved from Tokyo
to New York, focusing more on oil painting. He believed that acrylic paint and spray
paint would be the main medium of American culture and art, so he began to use oil
as a medium to forge his creative path against the current. Soon after, he began
creating works such as the “Neo-Cubism” series, which combined the art of the Pink
Panther with Picasso, and the “Subway” series, which depicted animated characters in
the New York subway system.
In this way, he has been collaging ready-made patterns with familiar objects and
places from his everyday life.
Apple founder Steve Jobs famously said: “You can’t
connect the dots in advance, only when you look back to the present day in the future
will you understand how the dots fit together. So you have to believe now that the
bits and pieces that are happening in the present, will somehow be connected in the
future.”
Talking about the uniqueness of things being unexpectedly connected or
combined. In his painting practice, he has a keen interest in finding these dots and
connecting them together in unforeseen and absurd ways. He is excited about his
potential for storytelling in his work when the connection of points is often inconsistent or disturbed. For example, Japan’s MAD (animated music video), can edit
and rearrange scenes from movies and animations on most video streaming
platforms to create new unpredictable stories and endings that are far removed from
their original setting. He was drawn to these unexpected forms and used them as
inspiration to start his paintings.