Fate, Imaone and Suiko: the Japanese Artists Displaying Work at the London Mural Festival

The London Mural Festival this year featured more than one hundred and fifty artists from around the world. The installations, in place at sites across London, were on display in September and October 2020 at sites extending from Walthamstow to Wembley. To find more information about the event in general, read our previous summary here.

The Japanese artists that the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation has supported at the event this year are: Fate, Imaone, and Suiko.

Fate utilises geometry, fine shapes and presents his work using multilateral dimensions. One of the defining features of his work is that he places things and characters delicately in his artwork. As well as this, the multilateral nature of his art means that the pieces often feel 3D to audiences who view the graffiti. Fate has a portfolio that also spans beyond graffiti art and into designing products and apparel. He has collaborated with companies including Volkswagen and Nike and, while he is based in Kanagawa, Tokyo, Fate has taken part in many exhibitions outside of Japan.

Imaone’s work is often character-based and combines daring shapes and colours with expressive figures. Observers will notice that his work follows a pattern and will often create an effect similar to a storyboard where onlookers can follow the characters along the wall-scape. Speaking to the Graffiti Review, Imaone described his artistic process of painting and explained that often with graffiti art or wall writing, it is difficult to be given the opportunity to practice his craft. As a result, he often relies on his own life experiences and imagination when he is creating graffiti – something he compared to the creativity required by a chef when preparing a dish for a customer. Finally, Suiko has been based in Hiroshima since the age of three. Born in Oita, he has become one of Japan’s leading graffiti writers. His artwork is noticeable for its focus on lettering, which fuses influences from traditional calligraphy with dynamic colours, irregular shapes and cutting lines that reflect his artwork’s overarching status as contemporary art. Again, combining the old and new, Suiko utilises old-fashioned themes from Ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblock prints) and Chinese characters.

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Article written by Maddie Baker, History and Japanese student at the University of Exeter.

Follow-up Article

An article about the London Mural Festival was featured in The Japan Times on 14 November 2020:

Suiko, Imaone and their friend Fate, another renowned street artist who started as a graffiti writer, were invited to take part in the inaugural London Mural Festival in September, joining more than 150 artists from around the world in painting more than 50 large walls around the British capital. The trio spent roughly a week working on a mural in the city’s Peckham area, and were satisfied with the results despite the difficult shape of the wall. Read on here.