February 24, 2021

Monsters That Kill Me For Me

Igayowai

A series of kaiju-ga (monster pictures) and photographs by Igayowai, who holds a PhD in biology and is currently a company employee.

Since the distant past, people have dreamt up a variety of monsters as representations of chaos. Monsters are depicted as grotesque things outside the reason of nature. The act of slaying monsters in stories is a metaphor for humans using reason (philosophy, religion, science, etc.) to control chaos and instill order.

This series was created by a person who has a strong interest in the act of imagining fictional lifeforms, as a way of tracing out the process of creating monsters out of chaos within themself. The artist, self-described as someone who is too serious, draws monsters as the antithesis of that personality. Monsters are a motif loved by the artist since childhood. The title, asking for the self that tries to be reasonable to be killed, is expressive of the artist's fear of and longing for chaos. The forms of the monsters, which are based on the artist’s knowledge of developmental biology and morphology, have traits such as eyes on the chin, or numerous appendages growing from the sides of the body, that are difficult to explain with biology.

The photographs that are inserted between the monster pictures portray moments when the artist wished that monsters would appear in his daily life.