One of the more pleasant things I’ve done on Saturday was visit my friends Megumi and Yudai’s exhibition, “Cheese Moon”. The gallery they hosted it at was near Sendagaya station, so I got to ride the Chuo line along Sotobori Park.

Megumi and Yudai have been working together on illustration for about a year and a half, under the name Myao Uninen. The majority of their published work can be found on their blog, in the form of a diary in which they illustrate short sayings (“Can’t see the forest for the trees“) or animals, like the Clione. Their art has a distinct, simple style to it, and a playfulness I’m fond of. It’s also obviously very child-friendly, an aspect they highlighted in their first exhibition at with illustrations from their first children’s picture book.

Last week’s exhibition (already done and over, sorry!) was more about the asobi air of their work. Ten, fifteen prints about silly things like monkeys stealing letters from the alphabet and snakes aspiring to become cinnamon rolls some day.
Now, it’s a bit moot to describe drawings (you could just see them for yourself), and as someone a little too proud of his ability to draw Bonobono’s face at will, I’ll spare you unqualified opinions. But what delighted me about the pieces in the exhibition were the small stories embedded in them.

Let’s look at one called Spook Steam. There’s a ghost in it and a steaming pot of nabe. In the accompanying, short text underneath, it reads,
湯気を見て、仲間だと勘違いするオバケがいるかもしれない。
(“There might be a ghost mistaking vanishing steam for a friend.”)
Easy to start browsing the accompanying childrens’ book in your head, about an optimistic ghost not disillusioned by all his steam friends ignoring him.

Asked how they come up with the illustrations in the series, Megumi explains they always collect ideas for new drawings. They might be waiting for the lights to turn green, imagine a wolf mistake the yellow signal for the moon. Phrased in short Japanese, next to Yudai’s clear shapes and lines, you get the seed for a little story playing out in your head.

Ideally, I’d have taken home one of the prints in the exhibition, but alas, a slim wallet meant I had to walk home with more miniature size bits (one of the last remaining pocket calendars and a few tsuketasu hagaki (postcards you’re meant to add your own drawings to).