Completely obsessed with the work of Takato Yamamoto and I’ve only just heard of him today. If you’re familiar with the work of Yoshitaka Amano, then the best way to describe Yamamoto’s illustrations is a dark and twisted relative to that of Amano. Yamamoto’s subjects are both bizarre and beautiful. Vampires, saints, monsters, and Japanese folklore are rendered in startlingly crisp detail, with numerous hidden symbols ensonced between the organic pillars that he uses as a running motif.

Images by Takato Yamamoto. Japanese inks on paper.

I’ve managed to scrounge up some of my favorite images from various websites but the information on each piece is a bit incomplete. They’re hypnotizing, aren’t they? More after the cut.

Quote by John Coulthart.

Some art-talk:

There’s much that’s superficially familiar in Takato Yamamoto’s art—“Boy’s Love” tableaux with fey young men in various states of undress mooning over each other, then the perennial Japanese obsession with naked women bound by ropes. But closer examination reveals a degree of finesse and imagination that elevates his work away from the porn ghetto into the rarified realm of Decadence (as if those favourite Symbolist themes of Saint Sebastian and Salomé weren’t enough of a clue). For a start the drawing style is a great amalgam of influences from Beardsley through to Harry Clarke by way of the finest Edwardian pornographer, Franz von Bayros. Then there’s the curious details of severed heads, claws, sundry bones and eyeballs which decorate the otherwise florid arrangements supporting the figures. So far there don’t appear to have been any books of Takato Yamamoto’s work produced in the west and it’s possible that the sexual content and grotesquery limits that possibility.

Gorgeous, gorgeous work. I need to buy myself some of his books and possibly some prints (??).