MUSTONE: underground painting and Edo monsters

19 May 2006 Category: Features, Graphics, Japan, Street Art

MUSTONE: underground painting and Edo monsters

MUSTONE is one of the hottest painters in Japan right now - mysteriously hiding underground. Starting his career as a graffiti writer, he worked on cartoon expression, live paintings and held various exhibitions at galleries… At his newly opened joint office “MIXCROOFFICE” (together with his artists collaboration team Tasha Hisha and Naohiro Ukawa) - the aggressive painter talked about materials for painting, new live-performance drawing techniques and why he is so much into monsters.

Interviewed by Yuki Harada
Translated by Junko

A joint office of Tasha Hisha aka iseneehihinee and Naohiro Ukawa MIXCROOFFICE. There is also a club space attached to it.

Mustone, could you first explain what you mainly do?

I am a graffiti writer and a member of a creative group named Tasha Hisha. As a member, I do live-paintings and different artworks, also for their cloths line “FRIENDICK.”

That is a very unusual clothes line, though… What made you start drawing images in the first place?

I discovered graffiti and street art for myself in Japan in the later half of the 90’s. That got me into finding a way how to express myself through a tag name and in this way basically “producing” MUSTONE. I’ve been drawing pictures with a strong character ever since then.

From Nekoman (cat man)

title page of Nekoman (cat man)

Your work is very much influenced by the Japanese Manga culture and comics in general. You produced your own little Manga called Nekoman (meaning “cat man”). It is about a fight of Nekoman between two worlds and overall very symbolic and weird… But it seems like you actually stopped producing Nekoman right at the moment - or is that just a temporary break?

I am not drawing any comics at the moment but that doesn’t mean that I quit drawing them completely. There are a couple of expressive media I tend to switch in between: live painting, Graffiti, creating pieces fo exhibitions at galleries and cartoons. I always try to keep those well-balanced.

You also do a lot of live painting. What is important to do it well and to what extend are your performances different to other live painting sessions?

I view live painting as entertainment. The main aim of doing it is to make people happy who just paid money to see the performance. I watched various live painting events and found that most of them are only held for the painters’ self-satisfaction. It still looks interesting for the audience in the beginning, but then they get bored as the performance drags on and on and so people often leave before the end. That’s when I came up with the idea to do live painting along a story to keep the viewers interested. I try to evoke ups and downs by adopting my painting to the music and also invented a way of collaborating with another artist, who supports my drawing as I go along. While I paint on the canvas, he colors my paintings with a projection on top.

LIVE PAINT@NAGISA - coloring the live painting from another projector as the drawing evolves

“LIVE PAINT@NAGISA” - the drawing and coloring finish at the same time

How? How can the other artist color what you just drew in that very minute and control the projection on your painting?

He can view what I draw on his screen via a camera, then goes ahead and adds things, bits of color, shades etc using photoshop and projects that back on top. There are two very different forces involved in this live painting, the painting grows from two different sides and the reaction of someone else to my painting reflected in my painting makes it more interesting than a live painting usually turns out to be. This style is fully developed now and we took it further involving VJ elements and cooperating with people like HEARTBOMB. I’ve just been trying to make something that can keep the people interested until the last minute of the performance.

You also create pieces for exhibitions in various locations? How do you view this mix of different media in your work?

Expressing myself on canvas is actually the most important for me, but other things like live painting are a good opportunity to lure people into my exhibitions! The thing I value most when showing my works at galleries is, when people recognize a strong originality and immediately understand the pieces as MUSTONE-work. I find it very important to make the painting materials, canvas and me as a painter - including my other work - present themselves as one.

Gyu-ki, 112×194cm

Bake-Neko, 80×100cm

zombie cat, 60×72cm

What materials do you normally use for your drawings and why?

Recently, I tend to draw with oil chalk onto hemp canvas. Originally oil chalk was only for industrial use but it now became a popular outdoor painting material among graffiti writers. I also use that a lot for my live performances.


Dancing skelton, 194×97cm

Dancing skelton, detail

For my Yo-kai (monster) exhibition I used nothing else but oil chalks. Unlike markers which can only create a constant width of lines, you can vary the thickness of lines here since the cross section of the chalk keeps changing as you draw. They are just like crayons, so you can actually make your drawings look like kids’ scribbles.

Another thing is, that when you draw something on a hemp canvas with oil chalk, it reveals the rough texture of the canvas making it look some kind of dotty, gritty and real. I like to combine that look with my paintings, which look like misprinted silkscreen. I like to do such things intentionally.

killer ant, 18×18cm, drawing on a hemp canvas reveals the rough texture of the canvas

usagi 01, 38×45cm, painting which looks like a misprinted silkscreen print

Talking of your Yo-kai (monster) exhibition: that one was truly amazing! What made you get into monsters in the first place?

I suddenly noticed that all characters I always pursue are actually monsters! And history shows us, that all monsters of today are samples of the past: “Hyakki Yagyo Emaki” - a scroll picture drawn by Mitsunobu Tosa during the Muromachi period shows various monsters at a parade in Kyoto. This is the most famous monster picture and also the one which touches me most. Then Sekien Toriyama applied names to each monster in the picture during the Edo period in Japan and made up their characters as well - almost like monster cards from Edo times! Monsters became some kind of icon. Afterwards, various artists arranged Hyakki Yagyo Emaki and added new monsters. In short Hyakki Yagyo Emaki is a collage work. It is like sampling imaginary creatures in your head… I think Shigeru Mizuki is the man who still does that in now.

Semushi Otoko, 60×72cm

no title, 22×22cm

Shigeru Mizuki uses a made-up expression in his story: feeling MUHO, which means something like feeling a monster’s aura. To me, that is the same thing as getting an inspiration. I guess you can also call Mickey Mouse or Hello Kitty a monster!

I definitely felt a lot of MUHO and kept sampling things and creating my works. When I finally realized, that I had been trying to express my inspiration - which is essentially monsters in a way, I decided to call everything I had made from my sense of beauty Yo-kai - monster!

from the Yo-kai exhibition: the red emergency button on the left also links to the picture

from the Yo-kai exhibition: exit sign and door handle relating to the colors in the pictures

How do you usually arrange the pieces within the gallery?

In this exhibition, a consistent flow of color and balance was made all the way from the entrance to the exit of the gallery. The red of the fire-plug and the green of the fire exit sign in the hall also related to the pictures. Scary characters and lovely characters foil to each other and unite again in an infinite loop.

Is there anything you are currently working on or are dreaming of doing in terms of painting?

I want to draw Hyakki Yagyo Emaki on the street. I want to create the monsters’ parade at various places in Japan. I think it will work, not only because the format of the original scroll picture and walls graffiti writers use are similar, but also because I think that it looks real if monsters appear on the street. Actually, I’ve already started in Shibuya… My painting again links to its environment: the shopping street next to the walls are influenced the way how I arranged my colors and elements. I hope people enjoy the wall paintings and feel a unique space.

Huge Wall Painting: Hyakki Yagyo Emaki in Shibuya

Thank you very much for the interview and keep up adding amazing monster works to out streets.

79 Comments

  1. [...] The article in PingMag: http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/05/19/mustone/ [...]

    Posted by: Simulacre | Blog Archive | Japanese tagger Mustone uses monsters as primary subject matter. on May 20th, 2006 at 6:09 am

  2. Great article and a really cool artist! Thanks

    Posted by: Adam on May 20th, 2006 at 2:04 pm

  3. nice…… so evocative. Some are like the work of my favourite cartoonist, Kaz from New York.

    Posted by: guy on May 21st, 2006 at 11:56 am

  4. I wonder if Banksy of London had any influence on Mustone as they are very similar (or visa versa).
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy

    Posted by: Brent in Chicago on May 21st, 2006 at 4:17 pm

  5. It is interested in “Hyakki Yagyo Emaki”
    wonderful article and really cool artist! Thanks

    Posted by: ams on May 22nd, 2006 at 4:57 am

  6. Wow…It is a threat that such a talent is asleep in Japan.
    He should introduce it by an art scene all over the world.

    Posted by: swissam on May 23rd, 2006 at 10:27 am

  7. muho

    Posted by: tono on May 26th, 2006 at 3:57 am

  8. “Hyakki Yagyo Emaki” VS dog

    http://heartbomb.jp/weblog/2006/04/post_8.html

    Posted by: イセネエヒヒネエ on May 26th, 2006 at 4:17 am

  9. http://rblog-biz.japan.cnet.com/takahito/2006/05/googlemap_1bbe.html

    Posted by: Sitespecific on May 26th, 2006 at 4:39 am

  10. LIVE PAINTING MOVIE

    http://x3x.tc/zmg/archives/2006/04/post_56.html

    Posted by: Anonymous on May 26th, 2006 at 4:52 am

  11. What’s is MUHO ?

    Posted by: jenne on May 30th, 2006 at 6:43 pm

  12. amazing work

    Posted by: DAYANANDREA on June 5th, 2006 at 10:03 pm

  13. MUSTONE is participating in a group show in New York.

    Posted by: k on June 8th, 2006 at 3:13 am

  14. mido

    Posted by: mido on June 16th, 2006 at 2:55 am

  15. [...] Well, for me it is never “Nippon!”, “KYOTO!” or something like that. As for Tokyo, I could speak of it only as a “the feeling of layers” and an incredible capability to collect and hold information. Naohiro Ukawa’s work is a good example for that, too. People can find his obsessed way of archiving materials and laying them out extreme, weird, with some kind of otaku sense, you know. I guess that is Japanese. MUSTONE is another artists who has a very Tokyo-like sense with his layers&copies plus physical action. [...]

    Posted by: PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about "Design and Making Things" » Archive » ADAPTER: a design group renovates Tokyo on September 25th, 2006 at 10:21 pm

  16. Well, in my opinion comic art should be left to comics. All this manstream attention to comic art as a form of fine art is a complete misconception. This work is decent technically but lacks even a basic message to society. I have no idae whatsoever what a three headed dragon says about Shibuya other than it is another fake image to go along with all the other fakeness there-p

    Posted by: ponzi on October 27th, 2006 at 2:10 am

  17. Is this message little enough to be one of… lost idea

    Posted by: Mike Eagle on December 10th, 2006 at 1:23 pm

  18. ponzi is a idiot, nice art

    Posted by: dybez on April 13th, 2007 at 10:05 pm

  19. Mustone is in the how to cook DoCoMoDake gallery show in SOHO opening this week. 201 mulberry street in new york. opens oct. 19th - 28th

    Posted by: kat on October 17th, 2007 at 3:14 am

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