The first TENGAone @tengaone solo show in four years at Kaikai Kiki Gallery @kaikaikikigallery is closing today, Saturday, October 22, 2022. The title of the show is More Than Meets The Eye. I got to meet TENGAone’s parents yesterday. His father works for the company that makes prototypes of fried chicken and other products sold at convenience stores. I had heard that he loved horror movies and used to take TENGAone to go see grotesque American films when he was little, and would force the child to watch even if he cried and resisted. What a bizarre family custom! That child was eventually awakened to art; barely able to contain the abundance of his competitive spirit and technical skills in drawing, he spent his twenties in the graffiti world, with Shibuya as his base. In time, graffiti was explicitly declared illegal, and an era came where cities started to provide sites for legal graffiti. While he thrived in the new scene, TENGAone felt that something was off and gradually distanced himself from painting around town in his early thirties, increasingly withdrawing within himself. Yet he still wanted to make art more than anything. He rented a cattle shed quite exposed to the elements on a rundown livestock farm for a few thousand JPY a month, created works, held a few exhibitions, sold some works at art fairs overseas, and gradually turned himself into a full-time artist in his late thirties, shedding his part-time jobs. That was around the time I got to know him, when he helped me with my own artwork through MADSAKI’s @madsaki introduction. With the horror movies of his childhood seeped into his brain, you can still see in his work the sickening forms and expressions, as well as the distortion of his aesthetic sense. Though perhaps it wasn’t something the artist himself had wished, I have a feeling that by inadvertently internalizing his father’s avocation, TENGAone has become an artist who can create unique works. Please don’t miss the last chance to see the show!