The artist who uses only the mononym Naoshi is a master at turning small grains of sand into something great.
He specializes in sunae, the Japanese art of creating images with colored sand. In the tidy studio of his Alhambra home, he meticulously assembles out-of-this-world paintings in bold, saturated tones.
Naoshi's pieces typically focus on naïve, elegant food-centric fashion: think bonnets made of bonbons and boba tea skirts. One of her first characters, Ice Cream Girl, is an entrepreneur with a shovel for a head, inspired by a character she drew as a child. Another of its stars is a fierce fast-food warrior dressed in a cheeseburger skirt, wielding ketchup and mustard laser guns and flanked by a squad of fighters who turn out to be anthropomorphic pizza and hot dogs.
In this series, we highlight independent makers and artists, from glass blowers to fiber artists, creating original products in and around Los Angeles.
But not all of the artist's works have a gourmet bent: she also creates celestial goddesses and divas inspired by nature, and made a series dedicated to Tarot Major Arcana. Their “It” girls often keep company with a circle of small monkeys, kittens or creatures with candy for heads. Their vibrant, packed stages represent anything from an ocean rave to a rainbow-hued tent performance to a stroll through the cosmos. And no matter the reason, she always makes sure her subjects are “playful, sweet and dreamy.”
“When I was a child, I had the experience of making sunae using a kit,” she recalled during a recent interview. “That memory remained very strong in me.”
Taking advantage of that nostalgia, he began creating and selling small DIY kits of his own design in 2004.
Food-centered characters dominate Naoshi's work, including picture books and sand art kits.
“I started doing [them] with the hope that they can also become a fun and memorable experience for someone else,” he said of the kits, which range from easy to challenging and accommodate budding artists of any age and skill set.
But whipping up one of his large-scale smorgasbords of donuts, popcorn, and nigiri for gallery display is no simple walk in the park. The technique involves gluing an original sketch to an adhesive backing, cutting it out, strategically sprinkling sand in the desired areas, and then removing the misplaced grains one by one. Each piece takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
Originally from Japan (Yokohama by way of Iwate), Naoshi first visited Southern California in 2010, when she participated in a Sanrio Anniversary Exhibition in Santa Monica. There he exhibited his work and held a sand art workshop.
“It was such an inspiring experience that I started to feel like I wanted to challenge myself as an artist in Los Angeles,” she said. “It's always so sunny and the food is so good! In Japan, a lot of people wear black and white, but in Los Angeles everything is so colorful. I get inspired all the time.”
Since making the leap to live in the Los Angeles area in 2014, she has exhibited her work at Gallery Nucleus, Corey Helford Gallery, and La Luz de Jesus Gallery, to name a few. She has also led workshops and sold products (from art prints to t-shirts to washi tape) at places like Leanna Lin's Wonderland, Popkiller, and Pygmy Hippo Shoppe.
Jars of colorful sand and sweet works of art fill Naoshi's studio.
Settling in a new country was not without its challenges. “The culture is totally different,” he explained. “I felt stress every day.”
Early obstacles included overcoming the language barrier, as well as learning how to navigate the vastness of the city, how to open a bank account, and where to find markets and restaurants where you could buy your favorite Japanese delicacies.
“Over time I began to enjoy the act of challenging myself,” she said of her transition phase. Today, she congratulates herself for successfully filing her business taxes on her own and has become a regular at katsu-jina Tonkatsu location in South Pasadena.
Last year, Naoshi launched “The ABC of Sunae” a mini-encyclopedia of sorts that traces the global origins of sand art in its various forms, including the ceremonial sand paintings of the Navajos in the American Southwest and the spiritual sand mandalas of the Tibetan Buddhists. He also takes readers behind the scenes of his approach to the craft, showing off his preferred tools and providing step-by-step photos of the process.
“The biggest challenge of working with sand is that there is no room for mistakes,” she said while sitting at a work table filled with dozens of small glass jars filled with sand, all arranged by color. “Once the sand sticks, it's almost impossible to make corrections. So if there's a small part I'm not happy with, I have to start over from the first step.”
The intricate nature of sunae means that if Naoshi makes a mistake, he will have to start over.
A white workspace filled with natural light, your trusty craft knife, a steady hand, and a pair of watchful eyes are essential to keeping your girls' cheeks rosy and making your backgrounds shine. And he keeps his sanity working to a soundtrack of his favorite Japanese pop songs and the pulsating beats of Basement Jaxx.
“Sand may be the opposite of an efficient or convenient material,” he said, “but its soft texture and the time I spend focusing deeply on the process feel almost meditative to me.”
