Sush Machida Gaikotsu
Crank Up the Deep Divin' Ultra 3, 2001
Acrylic on panel
Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art Collection
Gift of the Las Vegas Art Museum, 2021; Gift of Cliff Benjamin, the Western Project, 2012
2021.08.189

“Creating beauty and finding beauty are really important to me,” Sush Machida told CMH magazine in 2009. He mingles motifs from both Japan and America to create a third place derived from his personal fantasies: an independent landscape of bright colours, springy curved lines, action, humor, fishing, and toys. His style is often compared to American pop art, but he points out that “In Japan’s art world, painting pop culture is not a new thing, it is an old thing. Andy Warhol started in the 1960s, the Japanese started in the 16th century–patterns, logos of department stores and woodblock prints—I guess that is in my DNA.” By frequently using art-historical references and brands rather than realistic images, he asserts the power of his imagination to turn artificiality into a new reality. “My culture—street culture, skaters’ culture—is about graphics, graffiti, tattoos and things like that,” he said to CMH. “I deal with traditional Japanese subject matter—tigers, dragons, flowers, waves and wind. Using old subject matter and making it new is really challenging.” Machida has described the feeling of being slightly removed from the mainstream as an essential part of his artmaking, drawing parallels with his status as both an artist and an Asian in the United States.

Item description: A brightly-colored painting of a white cat turning its head to look back at a huge fish. Three small superheroes in white and red suits fly around the fish’s head. A line runs out of the end of the cat’s tail and through its front paws, ending in a loop tied around the ankles of one superhero who is flying towards the fish’s open mouth. In the background, three birds hang from the sky on strings in front of a red mountain with a snowy peak.