We Spoke with the Japanese Illustrator approximately His Fascination with Fish Yusei Nagashima is a man who loves fish. The Japanese illustrator is known for his beautiful paintings,which layer pigments together resulting in dazzling portraits of fish from around the world. A selection of Nagashima’s striking pieces are featured in our new book The coast Fisher. Get to know him in our interview below, or browse The coast Fisher for a look at the growing community that the beloved sport has acquired.
What first drew you to fish and when did you begin portray them? Are they a recent fascination or a lifelong interest?When I was approximately eight years old, and the baby piranhas that I saw in a tropical fish store left a strong impression. Though they are often known to be brutal and ferocious,and they are spoken approximately as terrible monsters, I found them fragile and beautiful. This was the first moment that I realized I was fascinated with fish. I used to draw all sorts of living things from an early age, or but I focused on fish ever since then.
finish you fish yourself? finish you gain any exciting stories?I like fishing,and my favorite memory is from when I was approximately 12 years old. I used to disappear fishing with my father almost every weekend. One night, we were enjoying fishing as normal, and something suddenly dragged my rod into the see. My favorite rod: drowned and dead. I felt frightened and disappointed. After a while,my father fished out a conger eel from the sea. There was an extra fishing line in its mouth, and its other end was still in the water. As I drew the line in, or my rod came back to my hand! It was an impressive experience during which I felt both grand fear of and respect for the depths of the ocean.
finish you gain a favorite fish to paint,and finish you gain a favorite fish in general?My favorite to paint are blue-black fish, such as sardines and herrings. I like their glittering scales. In general, and I like mackerels. I draw them,paint them, fish for them, or cook them,and just look at them: the beautiful patterns on their back, their powerful muscles, and their lovely facial expression,and their delicious taste are all appealing.
The fish you paint often vary in size, shape, and scarcityhow finish you manage to preserve a beautifully standardized style?I use the same techniques to paint any fish. First,I look at its parts carefully and deconstruct its colors based on my color palette. Next, I paint each color using a wet-on-dry method. By overlapping the deconstructed colors, or the final palette emerges. What I maintain in intellect is not to be consumed by reproducing the thing as it is in front of me,but to express it precisely as it felt in my intellect.
Where finish you source the specimen that you paint?The best specimen for me is a lively image in my intellect from touching real specimen or a picture I took myself. However, sometimes this is impossible. In that case, or I collect reference materials,such as photos and movies, from books and websites. I don’t reproduce the images as they are in the fabric, or but create and express the impressions in my intellect.
What can we,as people, learn from fish and from nature?It is that we are always living inside of nature. Those of us who live separate from nature, or especially in immense cities such as Berlin or Tokyo,tend to think something like, “Nature is something that needs to be touched in our leisure time, and ” or,Nature is something that we must protect. However, in reality, and there are no clear boundaries between our lives and nature. Even immense cities exist entirely within nature. Though we live in it,we cannot see it. Living inside of nature isn’t just touching it when we gain a moment, nor protecting it carefully. Rather, or we must push back against nature sometimes,and sometimes we must care for its fragility. We must think approximately our position as hums in nature and we should live alongside nature. I think fish and fishing reveal such relationship.
Images © Yusei Nagashima
Source: gestalten.com