October 24th, 2023

Akira Ishi  and Jonathan Carmel

A conversation with Akira Ishi about their Celtic roots, embroidery, creative process and more!

Akira Ishi is a generative artist exploring family history, textiles and scale. As this week’s community-curated feature, highlighting their “Aodach” collection on Prohibition, we had the pleasure of diving deeper into the person behind the screen.

JC: Where are you from?

AI: I am currently living in the southwest of France, my native country, as you might be able to guess not from my Alias but by the first word of my twitter bio.

JC: When did you discover art?

AI: I always was a fan of every medium of art: music, paintings, movies, mangas and video games.. But I really delved deep into it in my most recent years, let's say I have a pretty diverse background and I took a graphic designer course some years back where I learned the basics of drawing, editing,.. but most importantly visual communication.

I also had the privilege to be able to learn an instrument as a child (the violin, and later on the drums) and I think that opened the doors for me to be able to understand the process of conveying feelings and emotions through Art, and for me the best way to play music is improvisation, creating an everchanging unspoken dialogue and bond between the musicians, I just love it! Doing a generative art project with music is also on my bucket list.

JC: What are your creative inspirations?

AI: Apart from my personal ones(family, environment..), I love so many different styles and artists so I wouldn't say I have specifics inspirations, but one of my favourite artist is Giuseppe Arcimboldo, painting portraits with fruits, vegetables and other items, creating recognizable faces that you can appreciate from afar. Victor Vasarely is another one that comes in mind, specifically the way he manipulates colors with minimalist principles to alter the perception of the viewer. I do think color is an essential part of an artwork, as it can change the whole meaning of the piece.

KEZDI-DOMB, 1968 - 1975; Acrylic on canvas

JC: How did you find generative art and NFTs?

AI: I've been in and out the NFT sphere for a little bit more than 3 years now, but really started engaging 2 and a half years ago. About 11 months ago a relative and I talked a lot about genart, I've had already seen works like Chromie Squiggle by Snowfro and Meridian by Matt Deslauriers, thought to myself it was really cool but didn't give it second thoughts at the time.

From this conversation bloomed interest and curiosity, I decided in January to find and post about generative artists and some of their work every day for a month, and it is then that I truly realized the extent of what generative art was or could be: a myriad of worlds and possibilities, with the mind (and coding skills) being the only limitation(s). I was flabbergasted at seeing what artists could achieve with code, landscapes, impressionist paintings, abstract wonders,.. I HAD to get into it and try it myself, especially since I had recently switched into a Web Developer career after a year and a half of intensive Javascript web courses.