At the Saatchi Online booth at Scope Basel 2008 the Japanese artist Teiji Hayama distinguished himself with his ethereal figures often inspired by well-known images of female deities. Hayama's paintings join together western and Japanese influences, combining different art historical periods with contemporary Japanese pop culture. Pale, ethereal figures with elongated, tinted eyes and long blond hair bring to mind Japanese Manga characters and also recall the depiction of women and angelic figures in Christian art. 'I want my portraits to have a psychological charge,' says Hayama. He achieves this by depicting his figures staring out of the canvas straight at the viewer with piercing eyes.
Works on paper
In his latest series of connected paintings, many of his fragile- and innocent-looking figures are pictured with tattoos, which seem to act as markers of adolescence and the impermanence of a phase of life involving mental, social and psychological changes.
Teiji Hayama was born in Japan in 1975 and now lives in Switzerland. He graduated in 1998 from Central Saint Martins' College of Art & Design in London and returned to Japan for four years to work with the designer Issey Miyake. He has had solo shows at the Dorobushi Ginza & Hiroo Gallery in Tokyo, and at Galerie Bassins, Switzerland. His work has also been exhibited in several group shows at galleries, most recently in the show 'The Painting Room' at the Transition Gallery, London in January 2008, and also at the Art Contemporary Museum Kumamoto, Japan, Villa Dutoit Geneva, Switzerland, and Art Génération Gallery, France.
This is Teiji Hayama's first solo show.
Click here to see more of Teiji Hayama's work registered on Saatchi Online.
Teiji Hayama: Innocence
Until 17 April
Galerie T40
Dusseldorf
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