An art director/photographer from wide, expansive La La Land living in chaotic, claustrophobic Tokyo – Will Goodan, aka Kanzen Lazer, has poured his soul into new project, Visibly Hidden – a frenetic mash-up of collage and painting onto an existing magazine. Goodan tells us that his move from Los Angeles, around four years ago, disrupted a creative practice that dates back to his formative years – perhaps reigniting his passion for this free-flowing artistic expression was a kind of catharsis for the culture shock of his move: “A lot in my life had changed during that time and producing a piece like this allowed me to go back and recollect my thoughts and view them in a physical form”.
Primarily working in digital form, Goodan’s disorderly book echoes the fast-paced fusion of image appropriation and cultural collision that is ingrained in Tokyo’s visual language, and is an excuse for the creative to indulge his hands-on talents outside of the day job. “It’s rare I have the opportunity to be careless, in art there are no mistakes.”
Will’s clients may not be so receptive to the disobedience and fervour that has been injected into his Visibly Hidden project – but we’re sold. Soft porn rubs shoulders with science fiction, Kawaii bashes heads with 1980s iconography – the sexually dominant presence that underlies Japanese culture has no shame here, Goodan affords sexuality no Love Hotel veil, dirty secrets are aired, Anime turns reality, all is washed with the hysterical strokes of troubled Abstract Expressionists. Visibly Hidden by name, but not by nature – here’s hoping Will doesn’t keep these talents locked up for another four years.
