No Artificial Flavors Added

Artist Spotlight: ESM-Artificial

As an independent curator, I always look for artwork that socks me in the gut. I want strong reactions and am attracted to work that has a dynamic narrative, interesting use of medium, or both. Vancouver-based artist ESM-Artificial's (also known as Kenn Sakurai) silk-screened Sensitive Series struck a resounding nostalgic chord with me. I became an immediate fan: his gentle palette, quivery line drawings, and sardonic sense of humor plucked at my heartstrings. As I explored through more of his work, I laughed out loud at his playful use of text juxtaposed with images from 80s pop culture on posters, postcards, stickers, t-shirts, and skateboards. ESM-Artificial's hilarious and unforgiving appropriation of pop culture icons really speaks to my generation; his work cleverly points out truths about youth subculture, love, and consumerism that are so obvious we may not see them until he puts them down on paper.

Kenn Sakurai created the pseudonym "ESM-Artificial" when he was studying printmaking at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in the late 1990s. Back then he focused on creating more graphical work while gaining a better understanding of color theory, copy-camera, and darkroom work under this other name. Later he started using the computer towards silk-screening, which he continues to do today. Over the years, his work has grown so popular that he's worked with Colette in Paris, 55DSL, and even COMME des GARÇONS—his Hello Kissy sticker packs for the Japanese label sold out within minutes of their release and were then sold on Yahoo Auctions Japan to fan boys for more than $80. He's shown all over the globe and has been published in numerous art and pop culture magazines. I had a chance to sit down with the jet-setting artist to ask him about his work, his loves, and what he's up to next.

What is your favorite medium? How does that medium help you get your message across?
Probably a nice medium-rare kobe beef steak.

My favorite medium is probably silk-screening because of its sharp, chubby colors and the instant-ness of laying colors and imagery down onto paper. I'm not sure if I have any sort of a message to get across, but it certainly helps in producing work very efficiently and fairly quickly.

With your art, you've been able to travel the world. If you could live in any city you've visited, which one would it be and why?
Let's see...I'd have to say Tokyo, for sure. The sheer nuttiness of the culture and people just make the whole place alive all day and night. I can't say for certain what it would be like to work there as I've only gone there for exhibitions or for visits with the family. I just can't get enough of the food, music, art, old-world culture, cleanliness, and overall hustle of the place—I miss it all the time.

What was it like working for fashion mavericks COMME des GARÇONS? What did you produce for them?
It was a project that was first set up by the folks from Colette in Paris, and then I sort of got passed onto the COMME des GARÇONS people. They were collaborating on a guerilla shop in Tokyo and wanted me to make a few things for the new boutique. They were both super easy to work with and a lot of fun. I ended up producing some skateboards and stickers for them.

What direction do you see urban/street fashion moving in the next four years? Well right now the urban fashion thing looks a bit messy. It's casual Fridays all over the place: blazers and sneakers, un-tucked shirts and hoodies that look like they were decorated by the colorblind and covered in Skittles. The interesting thing is the push for some of these companies to target the babies and kids of all these new, young hipster couples to try and dress them up. I thought that Hysteric Glamour's "Joey Hysteric" stuff was pricey, but kinda cool.

I'm not sure what direction fashion is going in. Some days I think that it's inching closer to that leather "8-ball jacket" phase again—people might start wearing Body Glove spring wetsuits and start dressing like Dwayne Wayne [from TV sitcom A Different World] meets Screech Powers [from TV sitcom Saved By the Bell] meets Gwen Stefani.

What about art?
I think that it's a pretty exciting time for art because of the crossover potential with fashion, commercial advertising, animation, automobiles, food—well, almost anything. Art is seeping into the mainstream without relying on galleries and museums. The negative aspect of all of this is the advertising companies and retailers (who have no clue about art) that try to jump on the bandwagon by hiring kids out of art or design school to emulate the work of the artist and designers they want copied.

Whose work inspires what you are doing today? Who continues to inspire you?
I'm more inspired by music, so the work of bands like Spoons, talk talk, Images in Vogue, Depeche Mode, Aphex Twin, 4th Floor, ebtg, Japan, Mick Karn, Yellow Magic Orchestra, DAF, Air, The Colourfield, a certain ratio, Phoenix, Duran Duran, The Ocean Blue, A Flock of Seagulls, Can, Kings of Convenience, Trashcan Sinatras, DFA 1979, and Aztec Camera inspire me daily.

Artists that I like are: Kaws, Barry McGee, Kinsey, Yoshitomo Nara, Warhol, Pierre Bonnard, Bob Ross, Shep Fairey, Reas, Espo, Joseph Beuys,Yoko Ono, Yoyoi Kusama, Robert Frank, Chris Ware, Gary Lee-Nova, Futura, NYC Lase, Sister Mary Corita Kent, Mike Mills, Kevin Lyons, Alexander Girard, and Margaret Kilgallen.

Murakami sees Hello Kitty as a sort of speechless, defenseless icon born out of Japan's defeat after World War II. Do you agree with him?
I'm not sure if I do. I guess she is speechless, but the power of Sanrio is probably not too defenseless. The character was developed almost 30 years after the war so I imagine that there might have been more characters before her.

What does Hello Kitty symbolize to you? How have you appropriated her image?
She symbolizes my youth and my heritage. It's a bit of a sissy thing for a guy to like, but the icon reminded me of all my relatives that lived in Japan while I was growing up here in Canada. Hello Kitty was and is a lot more interesting to me than Mickey Mouse or Casper. Don't get me wrong--I wasn't out there wearing a Hello Kitty shirt and slippers, but I had a bunch of pens and erasers with the image on it.

I've appropriated the image in my earlier days by combining it with a band that I loved since I was a kid—KISS. KISS were some of the first records that I ever bought, and I thought combining these two things might work on a graphic level and bring a bit of macho-ness to the Hello Kitty thing.

What's the most frustrating thing about being an artist in the modern world?
Probably all the biting and ripping off of work that goes on. Nowadays you also have to be super prepared to defend your work—so many people take things the wrong way and use the Internet to vent or misconstrue your art.

Another frustrating thing is that sometimes you think you might have come up with a pretty good idea for a project until you look it up online to make sure no one has done something like it before and find that many of the times someone has. I imagine that long before computers, you just made art and didn't worry that someone may have come up with the same thing you did.

Tell me a little bit about your sticker tagging habit. Is it a big part of what you do as an artist? And why is sticker tagging relevant in the art world?
Personally, I've loved good quality stickers since I was a kid and hoped that someday I would have the opportunity to be able to create a few of my own. I think it's a way that sticker artists and designers can leave a mark on places they travel to or even their own hood without vandalizing too much. It's kind of like having your own trading card that you can trade with other people who work in the same sticker medium.

I suppose it's relevant because it's interesting to see other artist's work during travel and to be able to add a little something of my own. It's always cool when someone sends a snapshot of a sticker of mine that they've come across when they've been out of town somewhere.

You've also worked with indie favorite Colette in Paris. What was the best part about that? Any future plans with them?
The best part of Colette is that they are just such a cool shop; not so much a brand as a group of people who want to get nice things out into the public and keep them up to date on all that is interesting. They are just very professional and nice, and you don't have to deal with 50 people to get anything done. I have no future plans with them now other than participating in a group exhibition showing there currently called "play.record.watch.stop" (http://www.aniceset.com/blog/12/).

For more information, visit www.esm-artificial.com.

-Chako Suzuki