In every issue of Time Out Tokyo magazine we show you a picture of a Tokyo location that you may or may not recognise. In our latest issue, we published the above photo featuring work by Spanish street artist Pejac. Where is it? Here’s a clue: you’ll find this ‘Tribute to Katsushika Hokusai’ on the outskirts of Tokyo near a temple that’s particularly famous for its seasonal, vibrant rhodendron bushes. Think you know where it is? Tweet us the answer at @TimeOutTokyo.
Want to know more about Pejac? So did we, so we asked him a few questions about his art and the pieces he created in Tokyo during a trip here in July...
'Seppuku', Tokyo, Japan
How did you get into street art and what inspires you?
I’ve always liked the art much more than the art world. When I was a boy, I used to spend long afternoons with my coloured pencils, sometimes alone, sometimes drawing comics with my brother Adri. To be a story ‘creator’ and to direct a bunch of characters as I pleased seemed to me very exciting and allowed me to step out of the real world. That passion for drawing remained firm for so long that I didn’t have any doubt about studying Fine Arts. During my university years, I developed what is the moving force of all my work: attitude. My strongest motivation is to feel the magic of my childhood drawing again and to combine it with my grown-up, critical view of today’s world.
What do you want your audience to feel?
The intention of my work is to get each person to interpret my pieces based on their own sensibilities and way of thinking. I think the only way to know what my audience is really feeling is to pose this question directly to them.
'Shark-fin Soup', Tokyo, Japan
Tell us about those shark fins.
My piece with the fins – which I displayed in a square right in the middle of Shibuya – speaks of how I see human life in relation to the animal world. Here, I expressed what a shark might feel when threatened by people, and not vice versa as we have been taught since childhood.
How do you develop your subject matter?
I channel my passion (not always positive) about what surrounds me into my work. People deal with the outside world in different ways and, for me, art is my way out. Each piece I create comes out of something that in one way or another has affected me. When I realise it, I turn those personal feelings into universal language.
'Gulliver', Tokyo, Japan
For more street art by Pejac, visit pejac.es