Kusanagi Tsuyoshi, Ammika, and Huwa-chan look too much alike and scary… A collection of “Face Wash Impersonation” art works by artist Yuri Sugiura

2023-09-05

Artist Yuri Sugiura and her first work “Kusanagi

This is art! This is art! It may be a bit of a stretch to call it art, but there is an artist who has been creating works of art that make you blow up as soon as you compare the title with a picture of his face covered in bubbles.

The artist is Yuri Sugiura, 34, an artist and “face-washing imitation” artist.

When I was washing my face, sometimes I would see my face in the mirror with droopy eyes and other times with suspended eyes, which I thought was interesting. Then the idea of making celebrity faces popped into my head.

The first face he made was that of Tsuyoshi Kusanagi.

I had a friend who is a big Kusanagi fan, and I wanted to make her smile.

He posted it on his Instagram in June ’18. From there, he posted celebrities such as Anmika, Huwa-chan, and Tetsuro Degawa as models, which quickly became popular, and when he posted on his X (formerly Twitter) account in March ’20, he attracted a great deal of attention, receiving 500,000 likes. Nowadays, he has been commissioned to create the faces of performers on variety shows, and has even been featured in videos by the popular You Tuber “Fishers” and others.

His first artwork was created in 2003, when he was 25 years old. His manga “My Weird Girlfriend,” which he submitted to Kodansha’s newcomer award “The 35th MANGA OPEN,” won both the Akiko Higashimura Award and the editorial board’s double award, and became a hot topic on the Internet. She is also active as an illustrator and artist, and has created a video work in which she lives 24 hours a day on a large wooden hiragana object.

He has also created a video work in which he lives on a large wooden hiragana object for 24 hours a day. “When I was looking at materials at work, I thought, ‘It would be fun to live on hiragana. I made a large object of “momo”, “ku”, and “ni” and made a video work of living on it for 24 hours a day.

To be honest, some contemporary art is difficult for ordinary people to understand, but Sugiura says, “People are unconscious and unaware of what they are doing,

“People create art unconsciously and unknowingly,” Sugiura believes.

Sugiura believes that “people create art unconsciously and unselfconsciously.

Even if we are not trying to create something, there is something interesting about the way we unconsciously change our face when we wash our face, and even if the act itself is the same every day, the fact that something different is created every time is funny and fun.

Still, it may be rude to be rude to the celebrities who were used as models, but… they really do look a lot alike.

I observe the model’s face shape, shading, etc., and practice until I get to the point where it can be appreciated by others, and then I make it to the point where I think it will work. In fact, it is not that easy. Currently, we have 150 works, but our goal is to have 365 works, because washing faces is an act that we do every day. I’m thinking that when I have that many, I can put them all together as a single work…I’m thinking softly.

Seeing is believing! I hope you will laugh after watching Mr. Sugiura’s full-length (?) work. We hope that you will enjoy the work of Mr. Sugiura and have a good laugh.