Yamabushi Art, Yamabushi Designs, and the artist known as rob yamabushi
The art made by artist rob yamabushi is easily recognizable due to the style of collage and the color pallet used. The collage style that the artist has formulated through the years has developed into a soul language. The spirit of defiant hope that rob yamabushi attempts to impart into each of his designs is the soul factor that seems to reach viewers beneath all the flamboyant colors. He seduces you with psychedelic soul and then tries to take you to deeper understandings. The art of Yamabushi has traveled far and still has a way to go. He shares the struggle and the idea that art can be an answer to adversity. His attempt to share his universe is ongoing.
The role of an artist in the world is to serve as a mirror to society. The success of the artist’s effort is regulated to how effectively he can engage the viewers continued interest. The artist then can become style maker, the one who shows you what’s cool. Then there is the folk art side, where the artist walks among the people seeking to represent the unrepresented. Telling the stories that are untold, sharing the hard fought for scraps of wisdom. The oceans of tears and sweat and blood that make the myths. All the support from family and friends that keep the engines running. All the parts that make the whole. The map of a path, from heaven to hell. The artist can then curate the culture, siphoning it down, distilling it into a new format for mental consumption and consideration.
Sharing the spiritual journey of discovery, the fruits of the quest. A culture champion digging through the graveyards of the past , sorting through ancient bone fragments trying to fashion a mystical helmet. Through the use of the enchanted helmet one can decipher the ancient mysteries and see the paths through the labyrinths. To drink your fill of the Minotaur’s blood from sacred golden goblets. If art could matter more, the world would be a better place.
The purpose behind Yamabushi Designs was to convey so much of the secret worlds, the hidden tapestries that secretly make everything click. Pass it to the left and do the secret handshakes. The frontier feeling of living in Asheville back in the late nineties instilled in the art of Yamabushi a joy of experiencing life to the fullest. To suck the marrow out of the bones of life and make art about it. There was a revelatory zeal inherent in those early work. That era is marked by the fusion of stylistic impulses from all over and the density of visual information included in each design. The kitchen sink technique, throw it at the wall and see what sticks. The artist rob yamabushi was attempting to cast as wide a net as possible, to ensnare the most viewer\victims. Even going so far as to re popularize many cultural icons from the eighties that would recently be exploited by their corporate controllers. The true revenge of the nerds. Hate, hate, hate or create and disseminate. The attempt to convert touchstones and re-appropriate their meanings was one of rob yamabushi’s earliest narrative hooks. Long live Cobra. Yamabushi Designs kept the torches of the underground world of collage art alive and in the hands of the people that could afford it and appreciate it. Rob yamabushi Johnny Apleseeded his art to those that had eyes to see it.
