ARTS, DARKLY | BARON

The fourth edition of The Death Book is dedicated to Japanese artist, Toshio Saeki’s (1945- 2019) archive of rarely published illustration work, that explores scenes of violence, brutality, horror and what lies beneath the surface of Japanese culture.

Saeki’s work is notable for combining traditional Shunga and Yōkai styles with elements of Western art and is characterised by eroticism, death and gore, questioning Japanese ideology and expansionism.

Historian’s often describe Saeki’s work as being closely related to the Japanese cultural phenomenon ‘Erotic, Grotesque, Nonsense’ (ero, guro, nansensu).