Week 27: “HR-FM”
“K2” (2015)

Find him on his website, Deviantart, Twitter, Eyes on Walls, or through his agent Dig Me Out.

Japanese artist “HR-FM” is a digital print maker who creates for the motto “the fossil which future people may dig.” In this, he creates intricately-detailed, brightly-colored large scale prints, often involving cityscapes. His work utilizes millions of small shapes fit together in tessellated patterns to create dirty urban* pop art.

While the colors–and they certainly are vivid and eye-catching–may be the first thing a person notices, HR-FM’s knowledge of composition and framing deserves note as well. His understanding of artistic layout and design make his pieces more than just bright; they  make them balanced and grand beyond scale.

This sense of design layout is not wasted, either–HR-FM does a fair amount of placing his artwork on products, and design work for different companies (including Modify watches and Bucketfeet shoes).

In HR-FM’s work, we see grit and we see otherworldly color tints, and we see things through a fractured yet encompassing frame that pulls us further in. It’s effective design work, it’s beautifully artistic, it’s finely detailed and intricate in the most minute of shapes and shades creating a greater whole. To me, HR-FM is an inspiration in the ‘bigger picture’ built from the smallest lines, and the bravery to take something and throw in things that don’t “go” there (colors, shapes) in an effort to improve the entire idea.

*  I mean ‘urban’ as in ‘city aesthetic’ not as in the way people couch their diet racism when talking about PoC. Just to clarify.