Takamatsu is a Japanese artist whose world is coming out of a fairy tale. But this fairy tale is not like the others. Dark and violent stories where floating melancholic childish figures are either in despair either in possession of lethal killing machines. Little melancholic lolitas posing with innocence create an atmospheric mystic world. Kazuki Takamatsu mixes traditional and modern techniques. From one hand he uses gouache, hand painted monochromed based objects whilst from the other hand he uses “Depth Map” a technique where every pixel on the object is a shade of gray that is proportional to its distance from the object looking at it. The match of these two techniques give a real sense of surrealism and astonishing depth.
The method of mixing watercolor pigment with an opaque white pigment in a watercolor vehicle (made with gum arabic) is traditionally referred to as gouache. Gouache (pronounced “gwash”) comes from the Italian aguazzo, for mud. Gouache is ideal for illustration and photo-reproduction. Gouache paintings are typically done on hot pressed papers or smooth art boards, since the paint imparts most of the texture and these surfaces help to create a perfectly flat paint film. Tinted papers are also more commonly used, since the tint is easily covered wherever desired, but lends a pleasing background hue in unpainted areas.
