Keita SAGAKI

Japanese artist Keita SAGAKI featured his first solo exhibition in Taipei in 2019, leading insane exposure from media press like CNN, Elle, Taiwan Tatler, Prestige magazine, etc. Keita cleverly blends contrasting combinations in his creations, such as high and low, East and West, and distances near and far. From his interview, we can understand this integration of Western masterpieces and Japanese manga has originated from his reflections on the essential differences between Eastern and Western paintings. “Western paintings and Japanese art contain many conflicting concepts,” Keita SAGAKI explained in an interview for CNN style. “Western paintings offer depth, while my characters are flat. Even in many classical Japanese paintings, perspective is not applied quite as much.” Nevertheless, Keita’s work can be said to have turned a new leaf for contemporary Japanese art. Keita SAGAKI’s works blur the boundary between high art and low art, or lucrative and commercial, with his creations that compose manga characters into the complex composition. The distinction of the two, high & low art, require altercating the distance of viewing in order to fully understand the contrasts presented in Keita’s works.