PROVENANCE:
Gallery Delaive, Netherlands
Private collection, Europe

Ayako Rokkaku began her painting career as a self-taught artist in 2002. In 2006, she received the Scout's Award and emerged as a talented young artist in the Japanese Geisai art fair. Rokkaku’s painting style is very unique. Before beginning an artwork, she does not need to make outlines with a pencil, nor does she construct any layouts in her mind. She does not use a paintbrush, but instead paints on cardboards or canvases with her fingers. The majority of Rokkaku’s works feature a childlike and colorful graffiti style. While her works exude the unique features of native Japanese anime and manga, the artist considers children’s picture books a greater influence to her creative process. The seemingly monotonously themed works, however, conceal powerful narrative elements; every girl featured in her works, too, is born from unique stories.

Rokkaku has always retained a childlike nature and uses her unique painting techniques to depict a colorful world of innocence. She creates paintings by manipulating acrylic paint with her bare hands. She uses the simplest method and most unsophisticated format to construct numerous works of innocent and beautiful sceneries. Rokkaku’s remarkability lies in her ability to create childlike innocence in her works. She uses vivid colors and recurring objects such as flowers, animals, boats, and houses to communicate her inner world with the public. Her works often feature young, wide-eyed girls with lanky arms, who are usually depicted in close-up. Before we even learn to hold a pen, children know to daub and smear with their hands; such is the instinct of all humans. Bold fluorescent color combinations, rich elements, lines resembling fireworks, spontaneous daubing, and infinite sentiments within unsophisticated images are all evidences of the artist’s remarkable talent. Rokkaku’s works are vivid in style, bright in color, and filled with innocent, childlike fun, ener gy, and vivacity, which make them unforgettable to the viewer. Even before we are acquainted with the artist, Rokkaku’s style leaves an imprint in our consciousness.

Her works, featuring bright and dazzling colors, are a joy to behold, yet the dreamlike appearances often conceal the rich emotions she wishes to convey through the canvas. At first glance, Rokkaku’s paintings express simple wishes and the joy of creation, while beneath the images lie anger, fear, insecurity, and belief. Dreams and mythology serve important purposes, but the pictures remain realistic and familiar. Rokkaku uses the most straightforward of ways to empower the canvas. This is best manifested in her “perfor mance paintings.” The young girls in her close-ups retain the nature of children, yet paradoxically, always reveal a melancholy in their eyes; their mouths are closed tightly, their eyes filled with curiosity as they, in bare feet, extend their long ar ms to explore the world. These characteristics resemble those of Yoshitomo Nara dolls, which feature seemingly innocent children’s faces but with profound and sophisticated eyes. Simplicity is in fact not simple at all. “I’ve always liked to make graffiti works as though a child,” Rokkaku said, “to keep changing my methods and for everyone to see this process. It is a pleasur e to share my creative moments with others. ” Ravenel