The Artwork of Lauren Tsai
Tsai’s illustation work was a reoccurring element during her Terrace House: Aloha State tenure, culminating with her 18 solo exhibition at Honolulu’s Ars Cafe shortly before she exited the series. And, after leaving, Tsai’s art career blossomed: in March of 2017, her art was displayed during an evening of Julien Levy films at Tokyo’s Sezon Art Gallery and she did a multi-story window display for Osaka’s LUCUA retail complex, then — just before December of 2017 — she covered Toyko’s Starbucks B-Side location in Christmas-themed drawings. With her artistic output seemingly stagnating under her multi-hyphenate directions, she would course-correct and refocus by mid-2018. Over the next year-and-a-half, her illustrations adorned: a capsule collection from Marc Jacobs, the debut issue covers of two relaunched Marvel Comics titles, and a piece in Medicom‘s [email protected] Series 38 assemblage. But, perhaps most impressive of all, she’d end 2019 with her own, wholly original art toy being produced.
Lauren Tsai’s Unreal
Upon first seeing Tsai’s Unreal polystone sculpture, two common reactions seem to be: “It reminds me of Princess Mononoke” and “It’s like something from Spirited Away.” Fair observations, as many elements do harken to those films, from the color palette on the supernatural creature to the sense of an environmental theme looming within the form. But Tsai’s creation is only reminiscent of those Studio Ghibli animations, not derivative of them, which makes perfect sense given the artist’s background. Though accepted into art colleges, Tsai ended her formal art education after high school, thus her raw talent wasn’t refined by academia but rather through personal taste and experience. With self-proclaimed influences including films from the American stop-motion animation studio Laika and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki‘s directorial works, this explains the latter’s aesthetic impression upon Tsai’s limited edition Unreal sculpture as produced by Medicom and 3DRetro.
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Photos via Medicom
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Photo: Pamela Ralat for CoART Magazine
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Photos via Medicom
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Photos: Pamela Ralat for CoART Magazine
For more information on Lauren Tsai:
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