Kokoro: The Art of Horiyoshi III

Courtyard Rooms, South Wing, Somerset House, London

Horiyoshi III, the internationally renowned tattoo artist currently has his first exhibition in London at the esteemed Somerset House.

Horiyoshi belongs to a royal line of horishi tattoo artists: those specialising in the traditional full-body tattoo called Irezumi. This exhibition studies his paintings on silk as well as displaying tattoo instruments and paint brushes.

Kokoro means ‘heart‘ and ‘feeling‘ in Japanese and through the paintings exhibited Horiyoshi III preserves traditional Japanese culture and mythology through incredibly beautiful silk paintings. Each painting shows typical Japanese images such as dragons, koi’s and white phoenix’s, but each one is depicted is varying sensitivity, intricacy and harshness depending on the story told. The diverse nature of each painting gives the exhibition an eclectic feel considering that most of the paintings are all the same size and repetitively placed beside one another. The varying brush strokes and colours used also add to this fantastic effect.

Having “vowed to never be lazy until the day I die”, he still tattoos six days a week after thirty years of practice. You can see a video of Horiyoshi III at work here which The Guardian recently made.

After meeting Ed Hardy (the exhibition opens with a quote from Hardy about Horiyoshi’s pioneering impact on tattoo culture and history) and becoming close friends, Horiyoshi started to use the electric needle alongside using traditional techniques and pioneered a new form of Japanese tattooing.

The exhibition is free and runs from now until until the 1st of June, it is open every day from 10.00-18.00. More information can be found here

Photos I took of some very beautiful folk tattoos on a recent trip to South West India.

All images by Reba Maybury

Tipu’s tiger currently resides in London’s V and A museum where I went to visit it last week. This strange wooden object was the handmade toy for Tipu Sultan the 18th century ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore in India (which today is in the Indian state of Karnataka). Made in 1790 this mechanical toy shows a tiger savaging a life sized British man. The mechanics of the toy lets out groans from the English man and makes his arm move. The tiger lets out grunts. Additionally a flap on the side of the tiger turns up to reveal a keyboard of a small pipe organ with 18 notes.

This toy represents Tipu’s hostility towards the British of the East India Company, a commercial enterprise with its own armies and civil administration, which during the late 18th century was engaged in extending British dominion in India.

Tipu also used the image of the tiger throughout his emblem, applying tiger motifs on the uniforms of his soldiers, on weapons and decorated his palace with them. His throne was supposed to have rested upon a similar life sized tiger covered in gold.

Tipu was brought up with extremely anti British feelings. Murals throughout his palace and the streets of his City Seringapatam were commissioned by him of European but mainly British men being attacked, executed, tortured and humiliated by humans, tigers and elephants.

All proceeds from this shirt will be donated to the relief efforts in Japan: CLICK HERE for more info.

“Crippled to the death”, she said and started laughing so I started laughing and she lit a black cigar and we smoked it, smoking and smoking and smoking until there was nothing but white, or near-yellowish white, and I could see nothing except smoke and I was all so very glad to be out there, smoking and blind, past the tables and chairs and people flirting and couples fighting, and the bottles of tonic and the bottles of vodka and the olives. At that moment I realized truly I just missed my mother, a tiny bit, there in the smoke, feeling myself disappearing. I wished I could have seen her one last time; wished I could have been her all along, which is all I ever wanted somehow, as a girl, as a woman even, to be a mother and suddenly I thought back to it all and whispered, “So long, I’m off. I am always trying to imagine death, and I thought I would imagine better one day, but have not.”

Two poor Chinese opium smokers. Gouache painting on rice-paper, 19th century.

Two wealthy Chinese opium smokers. Gouache painting on rice-paper, 19th century.

The team at Totem brought two very modern Korean designers as guests to Barcelona 080. Check out the clean futursitic flow of Juun J. (top half) and Songzio (bottom half). Korea is definitely flexing on an international level and I find the menswear from this part of the world especially promising. These guys are showing that just a touch of sci-fi on the right guy can be pleasing to the eye. Juun and Esther Kim were on hand to enjoy the festivities with us as well as Songzio’s family and his teenage son was working overtime as English interpreter… so endearing. Its a family affair indeed.

The top 4 rows above – Juun J.

The bottom 4 rows above – Songzio

“In the night of Brahma, nature is inert, and cannot dance till Shiva wills it: He rises from his rapture, and dancing sends through inert matter pulsing waves of awakening sound, and matter also dances appearing as a glory round about him. Dancing, he sustains its manifold phenomena. In the fulness of time, still dancing, he destroys all forms and names by fire and gives new rest. This is poetry; but none the less, science.”

Coomaraswamy, Ananda, “The Dance of Shiva; fourteen Indian Essays”, 1970, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, New Dehli.