Kiyoshi awazu biography of martin

Already a member? Sign in below. Remember Me. Forgot Password. Kiyoshi Awazu was a renowned Japanese graphic designer, known for his contributions across various creative fields including poster design, architecture, set design, filmmaking, and illustration. A self-taught artist, Awazu developed a distinctive and eclectic graphic style, characterized by vibrant colour schemes, the use of motifs from both traditional Japanese art and modern pop culture, and the integration of supergraphics and expressive typography.

In our mind, Japan's design practice is easily recognizable by its Zen Culture-ish visuals, a style that relays in calm motives, less-is-more thinking, and a lot of negative space as essential qualities. Awazu was a graphic designer who revolutionized this tradition. Someone who exchanges simplicity over psychedelic chaos. A mastermind who created a new path for vernacular iconography and, in the way, based the founding of modern design culture in Post-World War II Japan.

Awazu is a stellar figure in Japanese graphic design history. Born inhe is a self-taught painter and graphic designer known for his genre-bending bodywork. From painting to posters and theatre to architecture, his creative passion did not meet boundaries. In a context where aggressive change was a palpable threat to folklore values, the designer's vision focused on rescuing traditional art forms, using historical printing methods to illustrate modern symbolism, but also as an occasion to expressed social commitment.

His style represented a statement against modernist dogmas that pursue the internationalization of soulless symbols. In his own words, the designer's mission was 'to extend the rural into the city, foreground the folklore, reawaken the past, summon back the outdated. In over 60 years of activity, Kiyoshi Awazu built a reputation for experimenting with a vast range of visual formats, but also, collaborating with a big network of artists and architects — the Metabolism architecture collective as an example.

But most of his creations are concentrated in the film industry, specifically in film advertising design posters. Our story began in when a young Awazu joined the advertising department in a film company called Nikkatsu. Hired just as a part-time worker, he was involved in minor Kabuki theatre design projects. The poster illustrates a shocking scene: After the designer visited Kujukuri Beach — in Chiba prefecture, he stumbled on the fact that local fishers were deprived of the ocean by the US military.

It shows us a fisherman witnessing his fishing village stripped of the sea in a military exercise. In addition to the historical context portrayed, the designer decided to patchwork his childhood clothes in the fisherman's kimono. In a significant way, there was a correlation between the poster's protagonist's tragedy and his experience growing up in the Post World War II Japan.

The art piece was highly praised and also awarded by Japan Advertising Artists Club. It represented a decisive moment in Awazu's career, going from an unknown part-time worker to a promising designer. Moreover, it gave us a glance at the social vision he was about to bring to the field.

Kiyoshi awazu biography of martin: Kiyoshi Awazu's distinctive, often psychedelic,

As for expressive language and social criticism topics, Ben Shahn — became a big inspiration in Awazu's artwork. The nationalized American painter and photographer used visual arts as a medium for social and political justice, illustrating those who struggle and quest for dignity. The social realist painter considered himself a committed worker with society, using art as a tool for political activism.

His paintings avoided 'high-culture' themes to emphasize common folk, workforces, underprivileged people, and social outcasts. Shahn's illustrations were somehow modest in technique but loaded with meaningful content. If we contrast 'Give Back Our Sea' with the Shahn's painting 'Beatitudes' - the two coetaneous - it is possible to identify similarities.

The poster received the grand prize at the Nissenbi Exhibition organized by the Japan Advertising Artists' Club, bringing Awazu public recognition and catalyzing his graphic design career. Awazu's melancholic scenes reflect his status as part of a generation of artists who witnessed and came of age in World War II and its aftermath, as well as his involvement in left-wing politics.

His style began to evolve and take on more experimental, abstract qualities during the s. Resisting the formal conventions of mid-century modernism, Awazu instead opted for more expressive, variable forms that made use of sketches, ideograms, motifs culled from folklore and mythology, and adopted a vibrant pop color palette that would soon become synonymous with his style.

From the late s onward, Awazu began to gain widespread recognition through film and theater promotional posters, and in received the top prize at the International Film Poster Contest held in Paris. Awazu possessed a rich language of motifs and styles that drew from a range of historical and popular references. Many of his works harken to the graphic linearity and expressive faces and textiles found in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock printingwhile subverting their contexts and colors to evoke contemporary pop sensibilities.

Though best known for his psychedelic, symbol-laden assemblages that make use of vivid colors and crisp, expressive contours, Awazu was not restricted to a single style and often employed varied methods and techniques to create works that could be radically minimal in form, or used more painterly strokes and monochromatic palettes. Understanding his practice as one of reprinting and reproducing in order to assert meanings and ideas, Awazu often made use of recurring motifs such as Sada Abeturtles, and fingerprints in altered forms and famously proclaimed, "take the path of duplication!

Kiyoshi awazu biography of martin: Kiyoshi Awazu was a self-taught graphic

Many of Awazu's posters deal with political movements and social struggles, as evidenced by clients such as Shingeki theatre groups, the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombsand causes such as the Korean struggle for democracy and anti-Vietnam War activism. Awazu sought to emphasize the birds' "human qualities" and represented them "with eyes wide open and mouths agape as if clamoring to communicate something," alluding to the collective spirit that fueled these calls for peace.

Awazu was active in avant-garde filmmaking circles as both a poster designer and an occasional filmmaker. InAwazu designed the poster for Hiroshi Teshigahara's Pitfallwhich featured the fingerprint motif that would become one of the signature elements of Awazu's graphic vocabulary. He also created a number of experimental films throughout his career and sat on the board of Film Art Inc.

Awazu was a prolific book designer and illustrator, and by had produced designs for over volumes. He referred to book design as the "origin of design," and the "god of all design. Though the vast majority of Awazu's illustrated publications were not intended for children, especially given his frequent inclusion of sexual themes, political topics, and garish colors, the designer did work on seven children's books over the course of his career.

Kiyoshi awazu biography of martin: Born in in Tokyo, Kiyoshi Awazu's

That being said, if there is any fairy-tale like element in my style of work at all, I hope to embrace it as much as possible. Awazu too was deeply engaged with interdisciplinary projects throughout his career, and was particularly involved with the Metabolism group during the late s and s, who put forth theories of urban growth through the prism of biological metaphors.

Though the Metabolist architects were chiefly concerned with the biomimetic dimensions of urban growth and economic development, Awazu acknowledged that his views on the city differed slightly from his colleagues, citing a greater interest in the "more indigenous and ethnic rather than metabolistic" experiences of modern human life. Labels: AwazuKiyoshi Awazu.

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