Otaku Shoreditch Culture

Written by Nathan Gotlib

LONDON, September 2012 - Nothing beats a nice walk around East London and visiting your favourite gallery spaces. One of them is the ICN Gallery right off Great Eastern Street, and they have a pretty interesting show going on there at the moment. Besides enjoying amazing rice tea and eating rice-bun burgers and chicken teriyaki wraps, the space usually boasts an interesting display of upcoming Japanese artwork.

Their current gallery is divided in a few sub-sections. They have a permanent display of the 20>20 J-pop illustration prints, a collection of work by upcoming young Japanese artists. All of the prints displayed there are also for sale.









The style of illustration greatly varies, from typical character design to miscellaneous dream-like environments. Some digital visuals are also presented at the space, although they don't evoke the same kind of atmosphere as the stylised characters and grayscaled sceneries the more crafty work  generate (I don't mean created digitally, more like almost electronic cyber-punk collages).









The upstairs part is currently undergoing refurbishments. You can still enjoy the Ukiyo-e pop exhibition, featuring some of Japan's most celebrated landscape woodcut artists, Hokusai and Hiroshige. From the ICN website:

"The iconic designs of the acclaimed print series 36 views of Mount Fuji and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo show innovative compositions, techniques and colourations. Their artistic quality was recognised in the West and had a profound influence on artists like Van Gogh."

You can also enjoy Riusuke Fukahori's amazing Goldfish Salvation display, from a past exhibition.










It is worth looking into the technique they use to actually create these prints. Absolutely breathtaking amount of work! Masters of craft cooperate to assemble these depictions of typical Japanse landscapes.




Also, when you walk out of the space be sure to check out the street art in the car park opposite. Probably one of the nicer ones I've recently seen!



And on a final note: last time I gave you some burger advice. This time, steak! Head down to the Owl and Pussycat pub down Redchurch Street and go upstairs to try out their amazing (and cheap) steaks. You even get to enjoy cocktails and a small hatchet!