AKIRA YAMAGUCHI

Tokyo artist Akira Yamaguchi explores the idea from a Japanese perspective with the hallucinogenic history lesson that is his new exhibition, "Japan/China and Japan/Russia Fantasy War Drawings."

Yamaguchi, 33, has long been working with the juxtaposition of different historical eras in his expertly-crafted and finely-detailed ink on paper drawings and acrylic and oil on canvas paintings. There is a real sophistication to his process -- the artist does not simply drop a salaryman into a Tokugawa pastoral scene, rather he seamlessly integrates different and disparate period moods, clues, and symbols, and does this so cleverly that it is often not apparent until one closely inspects the pictures.

For example, a man in a yukata, sitting on zabuton in an old izakaya, with the mama-san hovering over him holding a tray of not sake, but milk. Other examples, such as the Russian cavalry man riding a half-horse, half-motorcycle, juxtapose in a way that is not as subtle but no less well-integrated.

Yamaguchi also fuses different artistic styles in his drawings -- we see the lack of perspective characteristic of early Yamato-e paintings; and we also see treatments in the style of contemporary media such as manga, and the virtual imagery found in anime and video games.