Ai Yamaguchi

signed and titled in Japanese on the reverse and executed in 2003

Due to the inherent sensitivity of handmade paper, a few creases no more than 13 cm are found on the painted image, probably due to humidity or temperature fluctuations or overall dryness. Otherwise the work is in satisfactory condition.
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Ai Yamaguchi is a young female artist from Japan who deftly updates the aesthetic conventions of traditional Japanese ink painting.

 

The main protagonists of her work are always young girls, identified by the artist as being fictional, but who are based on the historical accounts of female child courtesans or geishas who used to work in brothels during Japan's Edo period (1600-1868 AD). In Ai's renditions, these pre-pubescent girls – aged either nine or ten, who were typically sold into prostitution by their impoverished parents – seem to be stuck in a warped dreamlike state in some indeterminate time. They are always portrayed wearing traditional Japanese dress in the form of colourful skirts or kimonos, decorated with stylised patterns of waves, sakura, chrysanthemum, maple leaves and other traditional motifs that were common to luxurious Japanese fabrics.

 

The girls are depicted either fully-clothed with their sleek, silky hair neatly tied up in a bun, or else in various states of dress or undress, sometimes topless with their long tresses of hair flowing down in waves almost resembling meandering flows of water. Hair, it seems, is an important theme in Yamaguchi's work, emphasising if nothing else the delicate femininity of the subjects. Their oversized long lashed eyes sparkle emerald-green, but register no emotion, which, combined with the innocence of each composition, suggest a naivety that sharply contrasts with their forced roles as courtesans.

 

The girls are always rendered in a relaxed state while 'off-duty', either making themselves up or recovering from their work. In both A Shell and then I Am (Lot 663) and Flowers Nestle Close to Each Other (Lot 664), the girls are portrayed burning incense in a clam shell, which according to the artist, was performed as a purification ritual after the teahouse customers depart.

 

The artist's works are suffused with traditional Japanese symbolism and auspicious motifs, not only in subject matter but also in production process. The girls are outlined in clean black lines filled with opaque colours in a flattened manner that derives inspiration from the Ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") woodblock prints of the Edo period – which often glamorised the working lives of prostitutes – but which is also influenced by modern-day Japanese anime illustration, which may stem from the artist's background as a former assistant in the studio of Takashi Murakami.

 

After studying textile design at university, Ai Yamaguchi became one of the young, up-and-coming female Japanese artists involved in Murakami's Tokyo Girls Bravo exhibition in 1999, along with Aya Takano and Chiho Aoshima. Unlike the other two however, Ai then severed her connection with Kaikai Kiki to find her own path. She has since exhibited her work at galleries around the world, publishing beautiful silkscreen prints and has collaborated with the Japanese cosmetics company Shu Uemura.