Of bondage, sex, and darkness: The art of Takato Yamamoto

The aesthetics of sex are beautifully crafted by both the performers, and he or she who watches one, or a multitude of bodies evolve in the thrall of Eros. There is an innate and primordial savagery permeating every aspect of human sexuality.

It is a boundless and unique realm where the reality of the act transmogrifies into an almost beastly behavior, one where the male and female body become vessels for an aeons-old force and energy that feeds off desire and the lust of man and woman.

Good sex is a like a perfectly crafted and artful masterpiece; the timing, the engaging visuals, the lovers’ projected auras, and the satisfying outcome. All elements come together to express one, or more’s, will to attain a new state of heterogenous orgasm.

And there is plenty of dark facets surrounding the relentless pursuit of pleasure, too. With the With the relentless exploration of new boundaries comes the lust for ghouls, demons, and the blood that enables life. When the world of experience with human subjects reaches a critical threshold of boredom and commonality, the mind walks upon a gravelly path to another place, heading for a temple of mists and winds that whisper with the promise of sublime desolation. This is a place where the ghosts of long-dead witches sing you a lullaby and lovingly dab your brow with their wretched saliva when you lay down to sleep the long night away, dreaming of what is like to commune with a succubus. It is a place dotted with darkened alcoves overflowing with the fluids of those who came there before you. This asylum for the mariners of the flesh looms large just over the horizon of perception, hiding in plain sight within us all, yet few dare to look past the veil of society’s traditional values and conventions.

It is within this context of transformation and the evolution of desire that we come to discuss the art of Takato Yamamoto, a Japanese illustrator and painter whose art perfectly conveys the concepts hitherto exposed.
In many ways, Yamamoto’s art exemplifies the traditions of Japanese iconography, while also displaying references to classic manga and the historic artistry of shibari (Japanese bondage). This is an interesting point; the ropes braid the bodies of the living and the dead, and the latter feed off their control over the former.

Yamamoto’s craft is full of twisted eroticism and darkened and arcane sex that oozes rivers of spectral fluids. There is a soulful asymmetry of askew consequences; ghosts and the living dead fuck each other in a sick and yet fascinating cross-dimensional romance. Wraiths feast upon wet dreams of a still life, and Yamamoto’s vision is one of desire for inanimate liaisons.

It is a polarizing vision, for sure, as one either loves it or loathes it. But if one is willing to embrace and ride on the back of one’s pursuit for the ultimate experience beyond the field of conventionality, time spent in this world of mature death and evolutionary sex is well worth losing one’s grace for the sake of embracing darkness and the death of the old you.