ART-ZOO

Jackson Tan (1974, Singapore)

Jackson Tan is inspired by fond memories of visits to the zoo, children’s shows, and playtimes at animal-themed playgrounds in Singapore’s public housing estates.

As one of the founding partners of contemporary art and design collective PHUNK, the creative director of the multidisciplinary creative studio BLACK and the creator of ART-ZOO, Singaporean Jackson wears multiple hats and is also an artist, curator, and designer.

As a visual artist, his works are based around his personal fascination with “finding meaning” through signs and symbols.

Go Ogawa (1981, Kanagawa, Japan)

Go Ogawa is known for his works’ unconventional use of light and color, particularly his manipulation of light refraction through prisms to create mesmerising visual effects. Influenced by Impressionism and Minimalism, he explores the "disturbance and expansion of sight" through intricate material combinations. His three-dimensional installations use holographic plastic film and acrylic resin to generate illusions of color, inspired by galaxy images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

More recently, he has expanded into jewelry production, collaborating with Tsutaya Books China and making his designs available in Shanghai, Xi'an, and Hangzhou. His brand, 'GoOGAWA,' is now a registered trademark in mainland China, further cementing his growing influence in the art world.

Go Yayanagi (1933, Hokkaido, Japan)

Go Yayanagi had artistic pursuits that were deeply influenced by his daily interaction and studies of animals, birds, and fish.

His vibrant creations represent a captivating fusion of wildlife patterns and cultural nuances, inspired by both his Japanese heritage and extensive travels. Characterised by clean, refined black lines and vibrant colours, Yayanagi aims to incorporate contemporary pop culture and personal experiences into this traditional medium, employing a fresh aesthetic approach.

Coining the term ‘Pop-Uki’, combining ‘Pop Art’ and ‘Ukiyo-e’ to describe his unique style of paintings and prints and views Ukiyo-e as a traditional form of Japanese Pop Art.

Jesse Franklin (1982, Los Angeles, USA)

Jesse Franklin is a master 3D artist and Emmy award winner currently based out of Tokyo and originally from Los Angeles, California. The artist went into fine arts painting and sculpture and progressed to study digital media at Otis College of Art and Design.

Franklin’s style is characterized by vibrant, surreal, and otherworldly aesthetics, blending 3D artistry with fine art principles. His eponymous solo exhibitions in Japan, curated by Warren Wee, broke auction records, solidifying his reputation in the art world. An Emmy award winner, Franklin seamlessly merges traditional and digital mediums, creating a bridge between physical and virtual realms.

Masato Inagaki (1969, Tokyo, Japan)

Masato Inagaki is a Japanese artist with a background in sculpture and contemporary art. With over twenty years of experience in video game production, he explores the fusion of art and technology, creating real-time, ever-evolving digital works.

Seeing the opportunity to bridge this gap, he integrates computer-generated visuals into his practice, where digital media becomes an interactive and constantly changing form of expression.

In 2004, he founded his own studio, daisy＊, a creative team dedicated to interactive digital art that blurs the boundaries between reality and virtual space. With expertise in video games and 3DCG production, Inagaki continues to push the limits of digital media, using art as a universal language to create immersive and timeless experiences for users.

Osamu Watanabe (1980, Yamaguchi, Japan)

Osamu Watanabe is one of Japan’s leading contemporary decorative artists who has transformed the art of sweet decoration into a captivating art form after graduating from Tokyo Zokei University in 2003 in the Department of Design.

By using modeling paste and wax, Watanabe recreates iconic paintings, sculptures, animals and heritage sites in his own distinctive manner. This discovered technique led him to pioneer the artistic field of ‘Fake Cream Art’— where he uses artificial food materials to create decorative and edible-looking treats inspired by various themes.

Watanabe has transformed puzzling contemporary art into charming decorative art that everyone can enjoy,  and continues to draw inspiration from classical subjects, reinterpreting them with his signature fake cream and sweet designs, expanding his artistic vision globally.

Yayoi Kusama (1929, Nagano, Japan)

Yayoi Kusama is an Avant-Garde sculptor and painter renowned for her distinctive approach to abstract natural forms. Her works, created primarily using watercolor, gouache, and oil paint on paper, often explore themes of repetition and infinity.

Kusama is widely recognized for her trademark use of polka dots, which she began applying to various surfaces, including walls, floors, canvases, and even household objects, as well as on the bodies of her nude assistants. This motif is central to her exploration of the concept of "Obliteration," where the repeated patterns convey a sense of boundless continuity. For Kusama, art became not an end in itself, but a mean to address the disability originating in her childhood, with the process of repetition in her collages reflecting her therapeutic approach.

Through her innovative and immersive works, Kusama has become a pioneering figure in contemporary art.

Yuji Kanamaru (1978, Kanagawa, Japan)

Yuji Kanamaru graduated from the Department of Design at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2003.

He established his unique artistic voice by showcasing his intricate textures created through deliberate cracks and the use of materials such as burlap and English newspapers. With vibrant, multi-layered colours, Kanamaru’s art transports viewers into a world where exoticism and nostalgia converge, often featuring urban townscapes and motifs, inviting the viewer into a warm, comforting, yet surreal world.

His work seeks to capture the fleeting beauty of daily existence, building a lavish tapestry that reconstructs vanishing landscapes, memories, and emotions. In his fantastical world, animals serve as vessels for human emotions, offering a visual representation of the mental landscape of people.  Kanamaru constructs a magical world where living beings dance through time and memory, creating a space where the viewer’s inner self can gently reside.