Cari Mateo

Yoshimi Kihara

Yoshimi Kihara uses newspaper as her raw material and uses the most basic of knitting stitches, 'knit and purl’, to construct these incredible works of art. In her own words:

“ Recycling is not really the theme of this work. I wanted to make something that wasn't trying to be beautifully crafted or following some notion of balance and harmony. So the choice of material is more to do with using something very down to earth, something lacking an intrinsic beauty of it's own”.

Images: Courtesy of Yoshimi Kihara

Mitsuko Tonouchi

I would finish crocheting an amiguri and pat myself on the back, “great job”. Then I discover an amazing free form crochet artist, Mitsuko Tonouchi, and blush. Tonouchi-san is a prolific artist with an incredible body of work which you can see on her Flickr site. She has quite an inspirational blog as well so do check her out.

Wonder how long will it take me to go from being ‘Jill of all trades’ to being ‘master of one’, just one?

Images: Courtesy of Mitsuko Tonouchi.

Meo Saito

Mesmerized with these floral paintings by Japanese artist, Meo Saito. These paintings are full of vivid colors and cheerful motifs but with a slight hint of cynicism. Japan Times says of her work: “At once elegant and haunting, Saito's paintings speak of the human tendency to gloss over the truth with pretty pictures”.  You can see more of her work here at Art Unlimited.

Images: Courtesy of Meo Saito and Art Unlimited.