Background

Teppei Kaneuji was born in 1978, in Kyoto, Japan.

Education

In 2001, Teppei received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from Kyoto City University of the Arts. Two years later, in 2003, he received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the same university. There, at the university, Kaneuji learned traditional techniques, such as modelling, stone and wood carving, and how to use resin. During the final year of his baccalaureate, the artist took part in an exchange program, studying abroad at the Royal College of Art in London.

Career

Throughout his career, Kaneuji's practice has consistently made use of contrasting found materials, often to comment on mass consumption in Japan. In his series "White Discharge", Kaneuji meshes together mismatched objects, such as plastic buckets, rolls of tape, toy figurines and traffic cones, and covers them with dripping white resin to create fantastical landscapes. The colour of the resin is no accident: in the context of Japanese culture, the word "white" suggests both existence and non-existence.

By contrast, the sculptural series "Teenage Fan Club" sees the artist creating a singular rule for himself: to use only hair pieces from action figures, superheroes, plastic anime dolls and other toy figurines. Inspired by watching people's heads sway together in the crowd at a concert, for this series Kaneuji removed the hair from the original body of the figurine to create new bipedal monsters.

Alongside his sculptural artworks, Kaneuji also experiments with two-dimensional images and printmaking. Much like the rest of his layered practice, his collages combine various textures, bringing together photos, magazine clippings, drawings and printed material. In his series "Games, Dance and the Constructions", Kaneuji assembles cut-outs from Japanese manga books and prints the illustrations onto plastic, mirror, plywood panels or soft plush sculptures, or merges them with photographs of real-life situations and locations, sometimes packing the contents into transparent frames. The series comments on the nature of two-dimensional objects and the relationship between image and object. As he explores different dimensions and contexts with ready-made materials, he changes how mundane objects are seen and interacted with.

During his career, Teppei's work was exhibited at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China; Eslite Gallery, Beijing, China; Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Australia; ShugoArts, Tokyo; Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama; Gallery αM, Tokyo; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Museum of Art, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea; National Museum of Singapore, Singapore; National Museum of Art, Osaka; Kyoto and the International Manga Museum, Kyoto, among others.

In addition, his selected solo exhibitions include "White/Drift", Kodama Gallery, Osaka (2002), "Smoke/ heavy fog", Kodama Gallery, Osaka (2003), "Teppei KANEUJI: Melting City/Empty Forest", Yokohama Museum of art, Kanagawa (2009), "Ghost in the City Lights", Eslite Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2011), "Something in the air", Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Australia (2013), "Spook in Hot Pot", Star Gallery, Beijing, China (2017) and many others.

Currently, he lives and works in Kyoto, Japan.

Achievements

• Teppei Kaneuji is a well-known artist and sculptor, who gained prominence for his works, which consist of found objects and images, that negotiate the complexities of everyday life. His most famous series is entitled "White Discharge".
  
  During his career, he received several awards, including Encouragement Prize in 2002 and 2014, Sakuya-Konohana Award in 2010 and Best Young Artist Award in 2013.
  
  The artist's works are kept in public collections of different museums, including Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima; Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Kagawa; Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia and others.

Works

More photos

• artwork

  • Ghost in the Liquid Room #9

  • Ghost in the Liquid Room #7

  • Ghost in the Liquid Room #2

  • Games, Dance and the Construction (Singapore) #1-B

  • Edition 1

  • Games, Dance and the Constructions (soft toy/skeleton)

  • Muddy Stream from a Mug

  • Ghost in the Liquid Room (metal #1)

  • Games, Dance and the Constructions (soft toys) #19

  • Muddy Stream from a Mug (Sandwich)

  • Games, Dance and the Constructions (unfinished plywood) #1

  • ZONES (Mountain) #1

  • The Eternal (Singapore) #2

  • Model of Something #9

• sculpture

  • Teenage Fan Club #66-#72

  • White Discharge #37

  • White Discharge #41

  • White Discharge (White Pipes)

Views

Kaneuji grafts together the detritus of overconsumption, creating candy-colored sculptures and prints with Manga-influenced lines, that are the product of the overly stimulating, image-saturated culture, in which he was raised.

Quotations: "I’m interested in the connection between fiction and reality, and the ambiguous line, that separates the two. I decided to become an artist because I was very drawn to the stuff, that did not belong to any category and did not follow a set of rules or expectations, and art gave me that freedom to pursue ambiguity in the most direct manner."

"I was often at home by myself and I sometimes felt alone, so I would often put up my drawings and clay figures, hold stuffed animals, read my favorite manga and watch television. I think I was sensitive to the power, held by those actions."