Paintings of Urban Japan and the Beauty of Daily Life

Residents of a large Japanese metropolis go about their business, they are walking around, having a good time with friends, returning from work or simply wandering. It is such everyday banalities that artist Takeshi Miyasaka observes and then transcribes into realistic paintings.

The 41-year-old Chiba-based illustrator has spent the last twenty years developing his passion for painting. While his theme of predilection, scenes of ordinary life, might seem unimportant at first glance, a closer look reveals the artist to be an ethnologist of the everyday, simply celebrating life and its beauty.

In order to achieve such poetic and serene illustrations, the artist always proceeds in the same way. During his walks, he captures a moment through the lens of his camera, develops the image and begins to give more substance to the scene through painting. Layers upon layers, he transposes a play of shadow and light to paper in minute detail, applying colour reminiscent of the paintings of David Hockney.

His charming paintings have already won him an award from the Tokyo Illustrators Society and are also featured in a number of publications and works by Japanese publishers. Through his work, Takeshi Miyasaka seems to remind us of the possibility of opening our eyes to the world around us day after day, step by step.