About
Profile
あらすけ
Arasuke
Born in 1989 in Osaka, Japan. After graduating from the Faculty of Manga at Kyoto Seika University and working as a signboard artisan for five years, Arasuke became an independent illustrator, establishing a base in Tokyo in 2020. In 2024, through a two-and-a-half-month residency and open studio / solo exhibition "Kanda Wasshoi" at the community art space Yubido in Kanda, Tokyo, Arasuke launched full-scale artistic activities. Rather than treating exhibition spaces merely as places for passive viewing, Arasuke develops co-creative expressions through dialogue with visitors and live open creation.
Statement
Creation - Pre-Verbal Abstraction
There lies an abstraction accessible only through individual creation—an uncharted territory, unknown and yet unnamed.
Having worked as an illustrator translating words and explanations into visuals, living in an era where words are instantly turned into images with a single prompt led me to question the true essence of that work.
What organizations and AI can handle is a world of verbalized signs. It can only share what has already surfaced and been collectively recognized, unable to reach the deep inner realms of the individual.
Within the human psyche lies an abstraction prior to language—an emotion found deep in immersive absorption. This can only be reached through personal creation, emerging in its undifferentiated state as an inherently human domain.
Through the act of "drawing," I aim for undiscovered expressions that do not yet exist on the surface.
Exhibition - Liveness Through Festival
From archive to live experience. From a space of viewing to a forum for exchange. A festival where we hoist the portable shrine together, here and now.
Exhibitions often tend to become mere "archives"—records displaying finished products of the past. However, as a living human creating and expressing in the here and now, I believe that the "liveness" born only in this specific time and place is what matters most.
I transform the exhibition space from a venue for passive viewing into a "festival" driven by spontaneous engagement. By incorporating elements that turn bystanders into active participants, I create a co-creative space where we lift a shared expression together, like hoisting a sacred shrine—fostering human connections and experiences that transcend individual artworks.
Projects - Artists Intervening in Society
Intervening in corporations as an artist outside organizational interests. Bringing an unconstrained perspective to manifest art within society.
Japanese folklore holds the concept of "Marebito" (visiting deities/spirits)—beings from an outside realm who bring renewed vitality and transformation to a community. In modern times, I believe artists can embody this role of the Marebito.
From within a corporate structure, people are often bound by institutional responsibility, obscuring fundamental questions. As an artist standing on the "outside," I step into corporations.
Precisely because I exist outside organizational interests, I can pose taboo-free, essential questions that unearth latent inquiries sleeping within the company—inquiries that ultimately become seeds of art.
Art sleeps within society. The artist steps into that society to discover and co-create the artistic works that its people truly sought, thinking and creating alongside those who work there. Through my practice, I strive to pioneer this new paradigm of what it means to be an artist.