About the Artist

Kai Odagiri​

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WaGelArt artist, illustrator, and graphic designer.

 

Kai Graduated from the Osaka University of Art with an Interior Design major in 1994. She worked for a Japanese fashion company and an American toy company for ten years as a designer and coordinator for their stores in Tokyo. After studying computer graphic design in 2003, She started designing leaflets, posters, logos, and websites as a graphic designer. She went on to study at El Camino College to brush up on her art skills and started to paint acrylics when she lived in Los Angeles from 2006 to 2009. As an artist, She created three sets of Ukiyoe-inspired paintings with a plaster medium and acrylic paint for a Japanese restaurant in Santa Barbara, California.

She became an illustrator in 2019 and drew playful animal illustrations for the More than Us project supporting shelter dogs and cats in Japan.

 

WaGelArt is a very unique art style created by Kai in 2018. It’s a collage of Japanese washi paper pasted up with Gel medium on canvases. The Gel medium pulls the rich and flavorful colors of Japanese washi paper out to a vibrant and modern taste and protects its surfaces with the transparent layer.

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Her work explores the relationship between multi-colored contemporary modern and multimedia experiences. She uses various mediums with acrylic color paint, gold foil, natural materials, and especially beautiful Japanese washi paper to add a sprinkle of traditional Japanese taste to the modern western style.

Her friends from all over the world opened her eyes to see the beauty of Japan from a different perspective.