Shinya NAGASHIMA has been an artist for more than a decade. From the beginning he has created young pretty girls with fantastic elements of mythical creatures, divine beasts, and Japanese Yōkai monsters. These elements stand out even at this exhibition. From the works he has created to date, NAGASHIMA comments on a memorable selection.
In the netsuke I produce, my aim is to give form to fantasy. Young girls, mythical creatures, Japanese Yōkai monsters – By giving these fantasies real form in the world, power can be given to things that exist only in the imagination. (Shinya NAGASHIMA)
This is a contemporary arrangement of The Naked Hare of Inaba from the local Izumo Mythologies of Shimane Prefecture, where I was born. In the tale, sharks appear. I like sharks, but I rarely make them a motif in my work. In this work however, the shark for once is the motif.
The mythical Chinese phoenix is called a hou-ou in Japanese. Hō means male and Ō means female. I titled the work Jaku-ō, which means young phoenix girl. I combined the work with the sun and fire image associated with the phoenix. This time I worked particularly hard sculpturing the hands, so I would be very pleased if you noticed them!
The dragon is an important motif for me. Its form overflows with powerful personality. It is cool without complaints. I like both the oriental dragon and the western dragon.
It was born out of the human imagination, but the birth of such a perfect thing is itself also fascinating. There are various dragon designs, but it is interesting that generically they are all called dragons.
This work was the main piece at the City of the Dragons exhibition in 2018 and part of a body of work.
When the word wolf is heard, I think a lot of people associate it with the timber wolf. The motif of this work is the Japanese wolf. It is said that, from out of its fierceness, the Japanese wolf was deified. It is the divine wolf that is the motif. Before, I had a lot of trouble making the face of a wolf. Recently, when making animals such as wolves, foxes, tigers, cats, I have been able to catch and express the animals’ characteristics.
The fox has two characterizations, as a harvest god messenger and as a monster like entity. I made this as one of the works of the “Spirit of...”series, as an entity with something strange and mysterious. Throughout Japan there are a considerable number of Inari (harvest) shrines. They also have a unique mysterious atmosphere. I like the Fox God in the Inari (harvest) shrine. It is one of the things I look forward to while on a tour of shrines.
The creature Nue has the head of a monkey, the body of a raccoon, the limbs of a tiger, and the tail of a snake. Within that I added the elements of a young girl.
This work used a technique from when I first began as an artist, the belief that if I mixed something I liked with something I liked, something cool would result.
A Kamaitachi is a weasel monster with sickle like claws that rides the wind and attacks people. It may be imagined that a lot of folklore was probably created through oral tradition, with adopted meaning according to the changing pronunciation of the words. Kamaitachi is a creature imagined from Kamaitachi, a word describing a stance in sword fighting. I felt this was interesting.
The mermaid can said to be a complete motif. By the meaning of “something I like mixed with something I like”, my inner self can also say it is the ideal form. The first netsuke I made with a female motif was a mermaid. Personally, the theme is a strength that I often use.
