Following on from Em Niwa, Sci-Fi-O-Rama presents another Eastern-flavoured selection of fantastical art. Feebee is a Japanese illustrator and full-time artist whose professional career dates back to 2002. I came across her striking imagery via Pinterest and was compelled to dig deeper.
Whilst she looks to have enjoyed extreme success working at home, there seems to be little info on her illustration beyond the Japanese web (which is slightly impenetrable for Kanji illiterate dopes like myself).
Still, intrigued, I decided to order the first of her two portfolio books, ‘Art of Feebee’, which took a month or so to make the voyage from Nippon to Blighty.
The book contains a decent selection of her back catalogue, and it’s really interesting to see how much her style evolves from cover to cover. Her earlier work reminds me of British illustrator/designer Rian Hughes’s late 90s club culture flyers/record sleeve work; it’s crisp and poppy, but a little mainstream.
Then we jump to her more recent work, and wow, is it on point! Here Feebee mixes Japanese tradition, anime cyberpunk and laser-guided technique to forge a selection of vivid fashion illustration that simply crackles with energy.
As is evident above Feebee marries strong swooping lines with large silhouettes of block colour that create emphasis for isolated areas of intense detailing. The result is a dizzying array of eye candy.
Her style seems to have rapidly flourished with the confidence of an artist totally at one with their work. What’s even more interesting is that Feebee has now mothballed this style and now pursues a more traditional path using Japanese painting materials and techniques. It’s equally brilliant, but a significant deviation, and something I’ll return to explore in the near future.
In the meantime, if you’d like to see more of Feebee’s work you can visit feebeejp.com, follow her on Instagram or check out her Facebook page.
If you’re interested in picking up her portfolio books, there are two; ‘Art of Feebee’ and ‘The Art of Feebee 2’.
I picked up my copy via an Amazon seller and whilst the transit was lengthy, it was of course well worth the wait.