Ishihara Tomiaki (石原友明) is a Japanese artist born in Osaka in 1959. He graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts in 1984.[1] Ishihara works in various mediums such as photograph, painting, and sculpture.
He was a part of the Kansai New Wave movement of the 1980s. Some of his works include leather sculptures,[2] three-dimensional works that resemble plush toys, paintings that use braille, self-portraits printed onto boat shaped canvases, blurred photographs and digitized images of his hair on canvas.[3]
In 1985, he participated in a three-person show with Yasumasa Morimura and Hiroshi Kimura at Galerie 16 in Kyoto.[4]
In 1998 he held a solo exhibition at the Tochigi Prefectural Art Museum, Passage to a Museum, and in 2004 Otani Memorial Art Museum in 2004, Self Portraits – Me and What Lies Behind. [5]
He has also been included in major group shows including Starting points: Japanese Art of the ‘80s at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa;[6] Photographic Distance at Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Art;[7] and Japanorama New Vision on Arts in Japan Since 1970 at The Centre Pompidou Metz in France.[8] Vanishing Points, Contemporary Japanese Art organized by The Japan Foundation and exhibited at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi in 2008.[9]
His work, Engagement IV, a huge installation in which he printed his self-portrait on a boat-shaped canvas, was included in the Aperto section of the 1988 Venice Biennale.