KOINOBORI FESTIVAL

Ciou

Koinobori Festival

2023

Acrylic and ink on paper mounted on wood

50 x 40 cm / 19.69 x 15.75 in

This artwork is Unique

Certificate of Authenticity included

Every artwork travels protected with the same care with which it was chosen.

Ciou (b. 1981, Toulouse, France) is a self-taught artist whose work draws on manga, lowbrow art and pop surrealism, blending European, American, Mexican and Japanese visual languages into a style she describes as “Necro Kawaii” — Necro standing for the dark side, Kawaii for the sweet. Working primarily in acrylic and ink, with fine linework built up using a 0.1mm technical pen, she populates dense, richly patterned compositions with powerful female figures, ghostly animals, anthropomorphic plants and adorable creatures baring sharp teeth, exploring themes of nature, death, metamorphosis, paganism and beauty. Active since 2004, she has exhibited internationally, including at KochxBos Gallery in Amsterdam and as part of Urban Nation’s Project M/14.

Koinobori Festival draws its title from the Japanese carp-shaped windsocks traditionally flown during Kodomo no Hi (Children’s Day) each May, a custom rooted in the legend of the carp that swims upstream against the current to become a dragon — a symbol of strength, perseverance and hope for the young. Rendered in acrylic and ink on paper mounted on wood, the piece channels this festive imagery through Ciou’s own “Necro Kawaii” sensibility, where dense pattern, adorable creatures and a distinctly Japanese-inflected visual language coexist with the darker undertones that run beneath her work.

To collect Koinobori Festival is to own a unique panel-mounted work from a French artist whose two decades of practice have folded Japanese folklore and visual culture into a densely patterned universe entirely her own — a piece that carries, within its ornamental surface, the same current of transformation that drives the legend it is named for.