Game Art: Shinji Murakami's "Final Quest" (2003-)
Composition of Big and Small Trees, 2008, digital print, 455*333 mm
Final Quest Cube, 2009, stickers on Rubik's cube , 58*58*58 All images courtesy of the artist Born in Osaka, Japan in 1980 and raised on a healthy diet of 8-bit classics like Legend of Zelda and Donkey Kong, Shinji Murakami does not hide his fascination for the aesthetics of early videogames. He produced an impressive number of black & white drawings, paintings and wood sculptures and panels using icons and characters from seminal GameBoy games under the umbrella term of "Final Quest", a fictional RPG that combines elements from Final Fantasy and Dragon's Quest. His passion for retrogaming can be also seen in a series of works created between 2008 - 2009 and 2003 - 2004. He also incorporates manga (eg a Doraemon strip) and toys (eg Rubik's Cube) into his art. Lately, Murakami has been reconstructing "real" spaces with videogame elements, like in "Central Park, 2009" (above). His first solo exhibition, "Final Quest", took place in Kyoto in 2004.Link: Shinji Murakami