Yoshitaka Amano Origins 始源

Yoshitaka Amano (b. 1952, Shizuoka, Japan) creates worlds. It's something he's done since he was fifteen, when he moved to Tokyo and began working as a character designer for an anime studio. There, drawing was always an act of translation. His task was to convert narrative into illustrated concepts, drawings that would become the connective tissue of a fictional universe. Throughout his career as an independent artist and as a character designer for storied anime and video game franchises, such as _Final Fantasy_ and _Vampire Hunter D_, drawing has always been a way of describing the porousness between the real and the fantastic. "I want to depict a world I myself have never seen," Amano says of the feeling from which his work begins. _Origins_ 始源 takes up Amano's interest in primordial beginnings. Over the last few years, Amano has been absorbed in Greek and Shinto mythology, making drawings of the characters that animate these stories. Here, he presents _Pandora_, a series of drawings of the Greek myth of the first mortal woman; they circle the gallery like an ancient frieze, or the storyboards for an animation. Alongside these works, a selection of illustrations, animation, and popular materials from the 1980s and '90s, including the anime film _Angel's Egg_ and sensual depictions of _The Tale of Genji_, is presented in our library. In all the stories Amano is drawn to, origins are an eternal structure, a threshold where being emerges. For him, that threshold is the page; his figures seem to move and drift across its surface, entering into worlds that exist beyond our lived reality. This exhibition, Amano's first institutional solo show in New York, offers a chance to encounter an artist whose drawings continue to have extended lives in the world around us. Right now, more likely than not, you could find them appearing on someone's gaming console as they play _Final Fantasy_ and livestream it to Twitch; on a _Gatchaman_ Uniqlo tee worn in the streets of Tokyo; or even on an iPhone as someone watches _Angel's Egg_ on the subway, in bed, or really anywhere streaming is available. Arts and Letters commissioned an essay, _Shining Genji_, by Sean Thor Conroe, which accompanies the exhibition as part of our Reader series. _Origins_ 始源 is curated by Noa Wesley, Assistant Curator.