Sky, 2005. Courtesy Blum and Poe, Los Angeles / Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris and Miami. c. 2005 Chiho Aoshima/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Ah, lovely stuff.
The first UK solo exhibition of work by Tokyo-based artist Chiho Aoshima is on show now at Baltic in Gateshead, running until January 28 2007.
Fantastical skyscrapers with faces surveying urban jungles, colourful tangles of zombies and fairies and idyllic rainbows fill the worlds presented by Chiho. Stylistically the subjects are manga-like, following the Japanese superflat movement - symbolically reflecting two-dimensionality in contemporary Japanese pop culture.
Chiho creates her artworks digitally, using Illustrator software and printing in a variety of forms including large-scale murals, which have in the past been installed over entire rooms. The apocalyptic Magma Spirit Explodes is a chromogenic reproduction of her largest wallpaper piece to date