'Nadeshiko Shopper' by RoamCouch + The Dotmasters, 2024
A limited edition print collab. between the two popular artists.
19.7 x 19.7 Inches
50 x 50 Centimeters
Giclée print on matte 255gsm archival fine art paper.
Limited Edition of only 25 (#10/25)
Hand-signed by The Dotmasters in pencil bottom left.
Hand-signed and numbered by Roamcouch in pencil bottom left.
Includes both The Dotmasters and Roamcouch issued/signed COAs.
ARTIST BIO (RoamCouch)
Ryo Ogawa, better known as RoamCouch was born in Gifu, Japan in 1976. He is a street artist and Ukiyo-e painter. He began to draw in his childhood, influenced by Japanese comics and started working as a designer at the age of 18. Afterwards, he was diagnosed with a serious illness, which made him rethink his life and career and he subsequently made up his mind to become an artist.
In 2011, now dubbed “RoamCouch”, he began his transition into a full-time artist. He produces his exquisite and romantic works of art by using over fifty different layers of the hand-cut stencil and has been showcased at solo and group exhibitions both within and outside Japan. His detailed and rich stencil paintings redefined the stereotypical image of stencil art.
In 2014, he opened his first solo show titled “A Beautiful Life” in New York and achieved an amazing feat of selling out the entire collection. RoamCouch started a project named “Emotional Bridge Project” in 2014 and has painted murals voluntarily to revitalize his hometown. His aim is to attract art fans to his hometown by publicly exhibiting his works of art. Calling his new style “Neo Ukiyo-e”, RoamCouch works on art pieces to clearly indicate Ukiyo-e of modern times by blending stencil art with Japanese handmade paper “Mino washi”.
ARTIST BIO (The Dotmasters)
Born and raised in London, The Dotmasters is the offspring of C6.org, a new-media based collective of art-pranksters. Active throughout the 1990’s, they bridged the gap between art and activism with attention snatching events that pulled no punches. Hitting the headlines worldwide in 1997 with "Man in a Box", they incarcerated and starved one of their members in a surveillance cube in a gallery in Brighton. Their work was eclectic, merging graffiti, new media and performance from the street, night clubs and galleries generating a steady stream of irreverent broadcasts.
Founding member Leon Seesix, bored of the new-media world and the group dynamic started working under the alias ‘The Dotmasters’ , sideways look at a populist medium says the East London based artist. The Dotmasters possesses a typically English sense of humor, throwing two fingers up at the passer-by with his impeccably detailed stencil work.
As at home in the ghetto as he is in paradise, The Dotmasters work can be found anywhere from a pikey trailer park to the penthouses of Europe and have featured in both Banksy’s Cans Festival in Waterloo and his Oscar nominated feature film ‘Exit Through The Gift Shop’.
A frequent collaborator with the Mutoid Waste Company, The Dotmasters love of the sinister has morphed the dark heart of the fair into a twisted set of sideshows, dubbed ‘The Unfairground’. The sideshows can be seen at festivals as far flung as Glastonbury and, Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. High striking Test Your Strength machines stand side by side of rigged knock-‘em-downs (‘The Crack Heads’) and unlikely ball-games of skill such as ‘The Gobbler’.
The street is an immediate place; a place without a mediator. Its invasion, defacement and its appreciation are ultimately a symptom of today’s society.
There is NO subculture ONLY subversion.
Work has been shown at the Cabaret Voltaire, CH, ICA, UK, kunstnernes Hus, NO, Museum of modern art Gulbenkian foundation, PT and London Underground.