Tetsuya Ishida was a talented Japanese painter whose paintings were known for their dark portrayal of Japanese life.
The characters in his painting appear unhappy and often their bodies are in pieces or part of some machine or other object.
The artist died in 2005 after being hit by a train leaving behind around 180 works created during his 10 year art career.
Also check out: 3D Paintings and Photorealistic Drawing
omer rosenbaum
That is freaky! Too bad his blog is in Japanese.
Nov 8th, 2008
mat wig
Fantastically freaky, like doing salvia!
Does anyone find it ironic that he was hit by a train?
Nov 8th, 2008
cheesedown
He wasn’t just hit by a train. He surely wasn’t understood and commit suicide.
Nov 8th, 2008
dragul
In my point of view, his main aim was to show how many difficulties ordinary Japanese, have to overcome in every day live. So maybe better is to make up some sensible point in his pieces of art, than put on his blame . . .
Nov 8th, 2008
Hekko
Awesomeee!! :-))) I love it. ;-)
Greetings
Nov 8th, 2008
Dainis Graveris
huh, I am amazed – one more great selection…:)
Nov 9th, 2008
Camron Wiltshire
amazing! He has captured the disconnect between commercial and inner drive
In so many of this age.
Nov 9th, 2008
Urban Picasso
Simply Brilliant!!! I don’t believe an artist is concerned whether you can get inside their head and interpret the meaning of their work. I believe they create their work to satisfy a need to create!
Nov 9th, 2008
John Jones
Wow, totally stunning. perhaps some of the best artwork I have ever seen.
Jess
Nov 9th, 2008
Masa Watanabe
Wooooooooooooooh !!
Nov 9th, 2008
Travis (longtime Tokyo resident)
I truly think it’s wonderful that his message touches the responders on this site, but his skill is mediocre at best. There are many contemporary Japanese artists with clear, identifiable artistic talent. I would call Testsuya Ishida a talented illustrator.
Nov 9th, 2008
Mr. Me
I would like to know more about “the contemporary Japanese artists with clear, identifiable artistic talent”. Could you please provide us with some? THank u.
Nov 9th, 2008
hmm
i agree, but every viewer has their own opinion on what is conisdered “artisic talent”
Nov 9th, 2008
Peter Payne
Not to plug, but we carry Japanese calendars from Japan on J-List. If you search for “art calendar” there are quite a lot of items, my favorite being Morita Haruyo.
Nov 9th, 2008
maikeru76
Thought-provoking…
Can be scenes of any nightmare…
Can be bizarre…
This is the stuff what great modern art is made of…
GREAT! c”,
Nov 9th, 2008
nicoleq123
this is some clearly imaginative and creative ideas that he has. The thoughts that he provokes in my mind is astonding. He is one magnificent artist. The one where the boy is squashed into a baby cot, do you think it symbolizes how these days, japanese parents tend to overcare for their children and pamper them too much?
Nov 10th, 2008
Midla
These paintings are so creative kinda blows my mind. Some are kinda creepy too.
Nov 10th, 2008
TV Guide
OMG they are fantastic paintings.
Nov 10th, 2008
Luiz
Some of them are creepy, but the artwork is amazing. He was an incredibly imaginative artist. I’d like to get inside his head and see what he was thinking when he painted these, or at least, understand his struggle, whatever it was.
Nov 10th, 2008
John
Amazing and freaky. He must be dropping acid.
Nov 10th, 2008
TJ
I think its a great imagination, but a sick one also. He mostly used kids pics in these and with the way the world is anymore, we do not need to give anymore sickos out there more ideas of how to abuse or kill anymore kids.
Nov 11th, 2008
Melissa Adamaitis
John, he wasn’t dropping acid.
A closer look at Japanese society will show you how pressured they are to succeed, to become a workaholic, and bring honor to their families by doing so. The Japanese frown upon sexual relations, which explains the several of a semi-naked woman with a man not interested. The one of the crib is probably due to the fact that parents will baby their children for longer than needed, as having “cute” children is desired… the gothic lolita craze in Japan is speculated to have come from this… not to mention the over-abundance of Hello, Kitty!-esque items.
Having studied Japanese culture, these capture amazingly what it is like to be born and raised Japanese… and raises a few hairs on the backs of my arms. If they seem creepy to you now, go study their culture for a few hours and come back. It will give more insights than you thought possible… :)
Nov 12th, 2008
Sergey Tugarinon
The best!
Nov 14th, 2008
echo
it eats my brain
Nov 16th, 2008
Carry Moore
“Incredibly sad” is what I thought when I saw the first paintings…Only after viewing them all I read that he is dead…
You can read in all of his art how frustrated and alone he must have been. Trying to scream out the pain and misunderstanding what is his life…
The only picture with a little laughing is in the subway..with a brush and a ladies coat..
Big emotions, big fear and big anger meets fantastic imagination in feelings…
Frightening world…Rest in peace…
Nov 23rd, 2008
Yuhee
I just found out about this artist and his paintings gave me such a rush of emotions. There are quite a lot of similarities in Japanese and Korean culture and his insight spears the tender little spot inside me right through. It’s sad, upsetting, and funny. I feel like a part of my brain that hasn’t been touched for ages got a big zap!
btw, someone commented that “Tetsuya Ishida’s skill is mediocre at best.” I don’t know much about art, but one thing I know is that those who forge famous art works also have amazing talent and skills. I believe art that talks to people takes more than just technique. I don’t think all great artists we love necessarily had or have the best “skills”.
Just a thought.
Nov 25th, 2008
anna
Quanta fantasia! ! !
Dec 1st, 2008
hamid
its wonderfull and creative
Dec 8th, 2008
mohsen
salam
Dec 9th, 2008
claude
The body is but a shell.. the inner conflicts and pain that rage therein are skillfully and sublimely portrayed in Tetsuya Ishida’s paintings. One literally feels his torment..
R.I.P
Claude
Mar 1st, 2009
christina
wow…..I’m really very impressive….this paintings make you imagine and fell many things…
Jun 9th, 2009
Iflexion
As for me, those pictures look disgusting. At the same time, some of them look very attractive.
What a sophisticated brains and good imagination you need to draw such things. And could the painter be a healthy person?
Aug 31st, 2009
Mark
I have two pieces by Ishida-san … they form part of a gallery in my home of over 40 pieces of contemporary asian art and I remain in awe of this man’s brilliance. His works always get admired in my home and they always reduce the onlooker to emotional responses … he was a genius, sadly lost far too young.
Mark – Hong Kong
Sep 16th, 2009
Cam
I agree with Cary’s comment about these works having an overwhelming feeling of alienation and sadness. I think these paintings are beautifully rendered by an artist who has a keen sense of the ways in which technology, rather than delivering its promised liberation, eventually enslaves and alienates man from himself as well as his environment. Man becomes part of the technological apparatus. He finds himself so comprehensively immersed in it, he cannot choose to escape it; in fact, he is born into it. Technology doesn’t serve the boy, as it was intended, but rather, the boy exists in order to serve it. While this idea is by no means new (technological dystopia’s are a staple of SciFi), Tetsuya Ishida’s art cleverly illustrates the alienating consequences of what we have come to know and accept as a natural part of the modern world.
Dec 9th, 2009
Michael
I wanted to write that I enjoyed the comment he makes on alienation in our time, and, that the humans have more than this one, depressed expression. I thought then as I a psychologist, hmmm, so limited expression, can be a warning of suicidal feelings…
Feb 8th, 2010
Ashish Roy
Super imaginative. Out of this world!
Mar 25th, 2010
Liam
Amazing and beautiful!
Jun 7th, 2010
YIn
I can’t understand them all， but they‘re amazing！
Jul 20th, 2010
Tamer
The most intelligent in our society often live in frustration and his work was probably a cathartic process for him. However, he was not necessarily a tormented soul…his work is very intelligent commentary on Japanese society and he must have been a very switched-on and clear minded individual in my opinion.
His concepts are extremely vivid and to have such objectivity towards a society that you are involved in requires real clarity of vision as well as, I would guess, a sense of genuine detachment.
Jul 23rd, 2010
Unchloe
Awesome!! Great works.
Jun 10th, 2011
Skye
It is such beautiful and emosional art <3 Rest in Peace Tetsuya Ishida
Feb 15th, 2012
Michas
Ishida is easily within the tradition of surrealist art. Indeed, the style often looks like art from mid-20th century. This is art that by it’s nature is often gimmicky and a bit obvious. On the other hand it can be extremely beautiful as some of these paintings are. I think what Ishida did perhaps better than any I have seen, is portray the solitude, alienation, and overwhelming nature of our technological world in the series of paintings that show him trapped in and imperfectly integrated with the technological world of factories, supermarkets, airplanes, classrooms, etc.
Nov 24th, 2012
AKobayashi
It’s funny, but when I saw over 100 of his works at the retrospective in Ashikaga, I was impressed how masterful his technique was, especially given he was a young artist who produced at least 10 finished works a year and most oflarge scale. His confident handling of both acrylic and oil paints, tone, composition and drawing belies his age. There is rich imagination in his paintings, he kept notebooks of tiny handwriting tracking and developing his ideas. Few painters can elicit much reaction from an old hack like me, but his work has made me gasp. Most commenters above have a clear understanding of his amazing ouvre.
Nov 7th, 2013
Zoe
AMAZING!
Jul 5th, 2014
Samuel
Must have to say that amazing skills with an incredible work.
Jul 22nd, 2018