It’s Day 110 and it’s another beautiful spring day…that I’m spending mainly indoors because my allergies is making my body feel insane.  I still was able to paint and go on a nice doggie walk, but now I want to take a major nap!  Join me in celebrating Tomoyuki Shinki today.  A Japanese outsider artist.  I had such a fun time painting this piece today!

 

Tomoyuki Shinki (b. 1982, Osaka) is an outsider artist with a penchant for contact sports, namely wrestling and boxing, with some judo and Muay Thai mixed in here and there. Shinki uses a computer to draw contorted opponents, sometimes black and white but more often vividly colored. In bold cartoonish scenes, Shinki’s fighters maul, punch, grab, pull, smash, and flip each other around. The figures are hulking and muscular, and the activity leaps off the paper.

“Left Upper Cut” (2010) depicts two muscular boxers in the throes of battle. The boxer on the

right makes a swooping, powerful upper cut with his left hand, following through with what could have been a crushing blow that seems to have glanced off his opponent’s cheek. The other boxer grabs for the flexing bicep, as if to steady himself. The eyes of both competitors are fierce and determined.

Shinki’s use of bold, black lines contrasts with his more well-known style of applying bright hues to his combative matches. With nothing to distract our eye, we are free to follow the dark lines through the action and over the contenders’ rippling bodies. Abundant white space around the boxers (there is no crowd, only a hint at a rope) concentrates our focus on the heaving forms. The swinging boxer, having put his energy into a knockout punch, seems to tip back under his momentum. The left-side boxer is poised for a vengeful retort. The overall effect is a focused battle scene of a twisting pair of Hercules. We eagerly anticipate the next crushing blow.

Shinki is inspired by real matches. “Left Upper Cut” looks to be based on a still from a 1985 matchup between Larry Holmes and Michael Spinks (hat tip), in which Holmes lost to Spinks after fifteen rounds by a close, unanimous decision.

Above is from art critique article by Shaun Randol at The Mantle.

Shinki is a part of Atelier Incurve.  Here’s a description of their foundation from their

website.  I’m definitely going to be honoring more of the artists on their site. 🙂

In 2002, Atelier Incurve was founded as a complex art studio of Social Welfare Foundation SOOHKAI. It provides a beneficial environment for artists with intellectual impairment, and supports their activities to establish themselves in the art world. Presently, there are 27 artists. In 2005, artworks of Atelier Incurve were first introduced at an art fair in New York. Since then, their artworks have been frequently displayed at many museums and galleries both in its home country Japan and abroad. In 2010, it established Gallery Incurve Kyoto that focuses on the artists of Atelier Incurve.

I really really had fun with this painting today.  I decided to look for a nice reference

photo that I could use and then of course capture Shinki’s style.  It was a liberating experience and I enjoyed using all the colors…I was thinking about doing just a B&W piece, but after seeing all the fun hues Shinki tends to use I decided to use colors.  I hope you enjoy today’s art as much as I and I will see you tomorrow on day 111.  Best, Linda