Hitomi Maehashi, born in 1989, is a renowned artist of digital painting on photography. A graduate of the prestigious Aichi Art School in Nagoya, her technique goes beyond Photoshop and computer graphics to create unique, innovative, and meticulously crafted images with a strong influence from Japanese pop culture. Hitomi’s art often features ordinary people, including herself, with a nod to the popular manga genre SHOJO and the handy feature of the “cosplay” literally “custom player”, where many girls and boys dress up as cartoon characters or heroes, mixing this “street culture” trend with a practice called “kigurumi“.
The artist declared to the blog Nipposuggestioni:
I make artworks in a real world, not in a fantasy world. However there is a gap between the reality I feel everyday and the reality that you can see in my photos. I often make photos using myself as model and I transmit the world I see in that photo; in this way I create my art: I transform eyes and figures, keeping a realistic image but with big eyes and porcelain skin such as dolls and Vinyl Toys of my culture. Although this is unnatural for others, it is a natural way for me. Reality and fantasy are mixed together without borders and I also lose the trace of what is real and what is a lie.
I recently added Sign (above artwork) to my personal art collection from Deodate Arte Gallery. Check out their collection of Hitomi Maehashi in the link here and find your own favorite piece.
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