Erika Yamashiro

[madapostle]

Erika Yamashiro is a 28-year-old artist based in Tokyo, Japan whose focus is the act of sleeping--and Yamashiro makes sure to portray sleeping as an act and not a state. Her art views sleep as a transition in which the sleeper is caught somewhere between imagination and reality. Familiar sights become warped--shrunken cats, landscaped heads, human icing--and it is this de-familiarization that holds the viewer's attention. Yet, the strangeness of Yamashiro's painting is beautiful because of its ease; her fascination with static sleeping women surrounded by the marvelous and bizarre suggests a calmness in irreality. The uncanny happens to the sleeping figures just as the painting happens to the viewer and the calmness of the figures results in a dreamy acceptance of Yamashiro's painting within the viewer--regardless of the content. Thus, Yamashiro's surrealism is not abrasive; instead, it is an escape from the limits of the everyday and an adventure into the fantastic possibilities beauty.



You can visit Erika Yamashiro's website at Geocities.jp/ErikaYamashiro.

Please credit Erika Yamashiro if you want to use the following icons so others may be made aware of her work; in addition, please credit madapostle so other people can find this post and learn more about her. Thank you!















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