Teiji Hayama

Having grown up in Kumamoto, Japan; studied at Saint Martin’s College in London, UK; and now living and working in Switzerland, Hayama skillfully employs imagery that can be traced across diverse cultural contexts. Populated by elongated and amorphous figures of the world’s most iconic stars, Hayama’s works are characterised by an unsettling quality, achieved by distorting the likeness of these stars, reimagining Hollywood glamour. Imagery of icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali and Albert Einstein are portrayed with either bored or charicatured expressions filled with mockery, as though overburdened by social media fatigue. 

By employing a Warhol-esque use of vibrant blocks of colour, Hayama further emphasises the disconnect and tension between a visibly disintegrated appearance and a hopeless attempt at maintaining a pretence of glamour. A consumer item to be mass produced, these celebrity portraits demonstrate society’s obsession with the two-dimensional image. In a world run by social media influencers and defined by curated online identities, Hayama’s portraits echo feelings of loneliness and alienation, inviting us to re-examine our own anxieties feeding the perfectionism of our public image.