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Statement What I'm trying to express in my art are my experiences which are like pain, pleasure, sadness, and impressed scene. And various cultures and ideologies are included. In addition, it was filled with the dirty part that is existed in a deep inner and the hidden other side. They are dismantled once, restructured, and represented by the big eyed punk nymphets, my Alter ego. Therefore, my art is always impulsive, private and is free. An imaginative extraordinary world is composed by the oil paints or uniting of different textures. Many junk elements collected from all over the world are mixed, and the color flood is like a chaotic contemporary society. You might find an answer in my art if you feel that you are restrained or restricted by something that you can't see, or if you are worried about something. RASENN-KAINDAN vol.84 1971年京都市生まれ。京都市在住。テキスタイルデザイン、テディベア、キルトの作家として活動していたが、2002年に布コラージュから発展した絵画的作品=デコアティブコラージュの創作を開始。2005年頃からアメリカ、オランダ、オーストラリア等、海外を中心に発表してきた。2008年末にはニューヨークで、注目のセルフトート・アーティストとして個展を開催した。謎めいたピエロに癒される裸　のニンフが艶やかに油彩で描かれる。その周囲を、大音量で鳴り響く扇情的メロディーのごとく、キチュな雑貨品（ラベルやキャップ、ゲームのパイ、ミニフィギュア、印刷物のスクラップ、リボンや紐、造花、アクセサリー等々)が埋め尽くす。海外ではジャパニーズ・アートの流行傾向の前線に位置する作風と好感を得ているが、その創作の実相は、女の本能と感情の闇の面を告白する自伝的なもので、彼女自身の壊れやすい心についた無数の傷を覆うために行われるプライベートな儀式なのである。 Solo-Show"INSTINCT" Press Release If the integrity of an artist's work is judged by their courage and ability to tell the truth, then that is what you will find with Mari Yamagiwa. In Yamagiwa's work not only will you discover her truth, you may find that in this truth you uncover an interesting and seductive part of yourself. Her work rolls over you like a sudden thunder and lightning storm filled with primitive desire and beautiful imagination driven sexual imagery. Yamagiwa talks about the other part, the hidden part, "the dirty part", in describing her work. The truth of this statement is that we all have a little mud on our souls and it's the dirty part that keeps life interesting. Her ability to incorporate both eastern and western influences only adds to the works' ability to transcend geography and create a very personal and private experience. One can only wonder at the chaos or clarity that drove this once innovative fashion designer into the art world. Suffice it to say the fashion world's loss was our gain. -Ed McCormack September/October 2007 Also very much in the Monkdogz bag, so to speak, are the bug-eyed Neo-Keane Kewpie babes of the Japanese painter Mari Yamagiwa / Angie, which transcend the "Lowbrow" label, as well as the "Supercute" genre so popular in her native country by virtue of their deliciously sleazy punk panache. Ignore the part of Yamagiwa / Angie's artist's statement where she goes on about "the value of all existence. Believe her when she states, in her inimitable English. "My works consists in the other side and a dirty part." Grop show "Moriden" Press Release Mari Yamagiwa (Japan) Mari's work conceptualizes our dark and dirty secrets; the part that we all keep well hidden. It is a side that she is sure exists in all of us. She acknowledges the existence of different types of values and she is prepared to accept them all. Mari suggests that if you have any fears or worries that hold you back, you might find an answer to the problems in her multi-faceted, mixed media artwork. -Ed McCormack February/March 2007 One of the featured artists is Mari Yamagiwa, whose curriculum vitae states that she was born in Kyoto Japan, and further informs us that she has "a tattoo of Phoenix and cross" and is "enjoying life with one husband, two children, one lizard, and one lover." Although her penchant for unconventional personal revelation harks back to the 1960s avant gardist Yayoi Kusama, Yamagiwa's work is more stylistically in tune with such Neo-Pop tendencies in youthful Japanese art as the "Super flat" and the even newer "Cute Art" movement, which celebrates Hello Kitty, and big-eyed pubescent kewpie-doll sex kittens adopted from manga, among other aspects of the country's rampant kitsch culture. However, Yamagiwa's pulchritudinous punk nymphets (most of which appear to be self-portraits, or at very least, surrogates for her own Bad Girl persona) are surrounded with all manner of declasse imagery ranging from Chinatown dimestore dragons, to rock and roll detritus and biker insignia, to religious icons which lend them a horror vacua fascination akin to Joe Coleman's ghoulish faux-outsider compositions.