Arkiv Vilmansa is known for his creative work on cartoon characters. After studying architecture, he began to deeply explore pictoriality with a strong love for visual arts, and experimented with various media such as painting, toys, and sculpture. Arkiv's most iconic character, 'Mickiv', is a combination of his first, highly successful, vinyl figure 'Arkiv Instant' and 'Mickey Mouse'. He described himself as half an animal, half a dream. This statement explains the complexity of the characters in his paintings. Characters in turbulent movements with their mouths open as if surprised are reminiscent of various emotions such as mystery, intensity, and joy.
His work is rooted in childhood memories and has been visually influenced by street art, toys, fashion, nature, and subcultures. Particularly, colors, shapes, and lines have a strong influence on Takashi Murakami and Nigo (Japanese designer). Bold outlines, flat and organic forms, and vivid and dynamic colors deliver clear and strong energy. He built a unique way of emphasizing the texture of the surface while immersing himself in abstract painting for about three years from 2017, and this characteristic is well expressed in his recent works.
NKSIN is well known for his original black and white monotone portraits. Through his characters, he expresses contemporary social issues, especially human relations, in a provocative and humorous way. Born between a Japanese and a Philipino, he spent his childhood days experiencing many setbacks and discrimination in a closed environment. The character he draws reflects the experiences and thoughts he felt in a contradictory environment, and the meaning of self-reflection on himself and the overall question of what he was taught by his family and society.
He established his own hybrid style by applying the characteristics of various races and mixing them with Japanese subcultures. He learned to draw by self-taught, and I mainly use an airbrush. His spray painting style was heavily influenced by 1990s American animation design. In a recent solo exhibition, he presented for the first time an animal series with the motif of the 'Three Wise Monkeys' from Japan, which asks about our posture in living in a society full of excessive information.
The self-taught artist TIDE began painting while traveling abroad in Australia in his early 20s, returning to Tokyo and starting a career as an artist in 2009. TIDE was heavily inspired by the work of manga artist and historian Shigeru Mizuki, as well as old Hollywood movies and animations from the 30s to 50s, and began creating small scale and intricate pencil drawings in a pointillist style. He then began to explore various painting techniques, including watercolor and acrylic, and realized that these allowed for greater creative expression in both speed and scale. Continuous experimentation has led to his current multi-layered painting style that makes full use of these accumulated techniques, and his works draw upon universal themes of childhood and nostalgia to create a unique.