Bio: Takako Konishi

African American artist Takako Konishi (pseudonym, birth name: Keith Brown1969) constructs collages that pay homage yet break with the traditional collage aesthetic. He describes his process as painting with images. Utilizing digital technology along with traditional methods he cuts, pastes, blends and mixes imagery, creating multi layered mashup compositions that burst with sexuality, anger, beauty and obsession. “Imagery makes the best paint; it’s comes dripping with color and connotations.” (Takako Konishi)

Born and raised in Chicago, Takako has always appreciated existing between different cultures, classes, environments and neighborhoods. He attributes growing up in a large multicultural city as a big factor in what made him appreciate the beauty in the contrast of differences.
Formally trained as an architect (currently practicing in Chicago) Takako was heavily influenced by his time in graduate school at the University of Cincinnati’s school of Design architecture art and planning (2004-2007.) The school had a dynamic mixture of disciplines and students interacting within the same building. He fondly recalls attending lectures and critiques on Fashion, Art, industrial design and Architecture. It was during this time Takako became interested in collage.
His first experiments with collage occurred while doing research for his thesis (Culture, conflict and the Phenomena of Appropriated Space.) Here he employed collage as the underlying framework to organize the thesis document, installations and final proposals. This research proved to be critical in shaping his artistic philosophies. “The bi product of subculture generates rich material for art.” (Takako Konishi)
Takako’s collage making process, emulates the environments many of us experience daily. We constantly go back and forth between our real environment and our perceived environment as filtered through our devices. His art strives to reside somewhere in between this tension of the simulated and the real. Often starting in the digital environment, he’ll make physical prints, collage them, photograph them and convert them back to digital. This back-and-forth process usually happens multiple times on any given piece, eventually blurring and adding a layered depth to the two-dimensional work.
There are a few themes that have become apparent in his work. He has developed a fascination for the myriad of subcultures we all simultaneously exist in, each one playing a role in shaping our identity. His art tries to reflect and exaggerate this phenomenon, playfully giving form to these invisible selves.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Daily life is so strange and image rich as we are completely immersed in our all-encompassing social media culture. Modern media through its various forms and devices has grown into a behemoth, producing streams of imagery and content competing for our attention, often with messages that define our attitudes, beliefs, and social values. On this premise I propose that content creation is equivalent to a new religion, and our hosting platforms are the new temples.
However, my art is not a negative critique of our mediated culture, I seek to explore and appropriate this data rich environment as raw material to create an art that has tension yet familiarity. Using collage, I explore the subject, aesthetic, pace and ultimately sense of place we are creating through the many artifices of mass social media.
My art is a diary, a daily confessional of a present-day content consumer.