Keiichi Tanaami (aka “the Japanese Peter Max”) is the original Japanese pop artist. Known for his sexy, psychadelic artwork, he got his start at Musashino Art School, and did a short stint in advertising before embarking on a personal journey.

On his first pilgrimage to America in 1968, he went to Andy Warhol’s Factory, where he met the artist who had so influenced his style. There, it’s rumored that he experimented with LSD (although he refuses to discuss it) and designed the cover art for Jefferson Airplane’s After Bathing At Baxter’s.

Since then, he has painted thousands of works depicting the creatures that roam his dreams and hallucinations - goldfish are a common factor in his themes, as are pine trees and Japanese crests. In 1975, he became the art director for Japanese Playboy, and proved to the Japanese critics that a large format magazine could be artistic and successful.

In 1981, he was hospitalized for three months with pleurisy, a condition that required constant medication (another inspiration apparently, although again, Tanaami is keeping quite tight-lipped on the subject). Slave to no single medium, Tanaami’s colorful works encompass video, canvas, animations and graphic design. We caught up with the artist to discuss his incredible life’s work.


Keiichi Tanaami pops onto the radar in 1968 at age 32. What did you do before that time? Or, like Jesus, is it a mystery?
I was in a period when I could not be sure about my future and my work. Trying to protect myself from the noise and irritation from the outer world everyday was the maximum thing I could do at that time.

What did you experience in New York at that time? How did the music, art culture, drugs, etc influence your work?
I went to New York for the first time in 1968. America that time, was so youthful and energetic, there were happenings like Vietnam War, a feminist movement, the assassination of Kennedy... They surged all at once like the storm. As for the cultural aspect including the art scene, there was an appearance of the pop art like Warhol, and the underground comics with the topic with sex and anti-socialism was getting popular. Especially the stimulations I got from the experimental films by Kenneth Anger and Jonas Mekas brought the intensive inspirations to my creation.

You have worked in many media. What are the advantages/ disadvantages of each? Do you have a favorite?
The reason why I worked in different media was that I had a strong desire to give motion on a flat picture. By giving life on the picture, it became an animation and also by giving a three-dimensional shape it then developed to furniture and sculpture. The function of the distinctive feature on each media being compound is giving a good effect on both sides.

What is the significance of your nature themes? Do the goldfish, pine trees, etc have meaning?
Most of my expressions are based on my actual experiences. The countless amount of the stimulative experiences, happenings and encounters through what I have gone through in my life - they become the keywords of my expressions in each era that appears within my works.

There is a goldfish as one of the most important motif in my work; it comes from my childhood as my grand father had a telescope goldfish, which was my close partner that time. I still remember clearly the feeling when I grasped it in my hand - the touch of it and a sense of guilt from killing it. Also while there was an air raid in Tokyo, I saw a goldfish basin surrounded by fire and the visual of glossy surface of the goldfish and its scales is more or less effecting my expression.

In your work, is there a struggle between themes? To what extent is your work specifically Japanese or a product of any other culture?
I don’t think my works are particularly Japanese. However, abroad, my works are often evaluated as Japanese style. The Japanese tradition and culture lurk deep down in my brain somewhere, and they come out once in a while unconsciously. What have been giving me the strongest inspirations are mostly the paintings from the Edo period, like Jakuchu and Tohaku Hasegawa - their works are still the source of my inspiration today.

To what extent did your bout with pleurisy affect your style?
While I was in a hospital for having pleurisy, everyday from 9pm to 12pm, I had high fever, which was a side effect of the drugs. I saw some surreal images, which I couldn’t understand if it was a dream or a hallucination - they were projected on a white wall in the room. At the same time, a crooked pine tree outside the window was growing up in the sky, just like the painting from Dali. I had such hallucinative condition for about a month. I wrote all these down on 8 notebooks in the end, and from these, many ideas and images came up.

Is there truly a movement called "Tanaami psychadelic style?" What characterizes it?
Sometimes the world of my expressions is judged as "psychadelic style", but I don’t think that is my style. Everybody knows as a matter of fact, that the sensation of acid music in the 60s was based on drugs like LSD. Maybe my works are recognized as the ones being influenced under such movement of that time. The base of my style in expression is deeply related with the encounter to the war in my childhood. The scenery of Tokyo being lit up by the countless amount of the flare bombs dropped by the bombers - my fear and the heat I felt is still remaining in my memory so vividly, which is giving a light to my creation.

In the 70s you were the art director of Japanese Playboy. What was that like?
Basically, whether it is for the films or the magazines, I do love the work of editing itself, so being a director of the magazine was very much fun for me. At that time (1975), in Japan,  it was a common rule that the big format visual magazine can never succeed. I used lots of illustrations and photography quite dynamically within my editing, and I think it gave a big influence to the Japanese magazine culture afterwards.

What are you working on now?
In October, there will be a new book to be published, called DAY DREAM - which consists of my paintings and drawings.

What do you consider your greatest achievement(s)?
There is nothing that satisfied me in an entire works I did so far. There is always dissatisfaction remaining that stresses me.

What do you still have to learn?
I still want to learn everything.


As seen in Lifelounge Magazine 11 - The Food Edition