Hajime Sorayama: Bio Mechanics

The critical reappraisal of the work of Hajime Sorayama, most known for his sleek, otherworldly, science-fiction fueled paintings, drawings, and large scale sculptures created with painstaking technical detail. Trained as an illustrator and industrial designer, the Japanese pop-artist Hajime Sorayama was, early on, recognized for his design work on the original Sony AIBO―the groundbreaking robotic dog originally released in 1999. His more public facing art works continued to grow: his precise, often erotic portrayals of femme robots garnering critical, and mass, attention. His style, beloved by many, blends equal parts super realistic detail and obsession with the future. And over the last three or so decades, Sorayama’s work has traveled the globe, garnering crowds of fans at institutions the world over. His works have even landed him center stage, alongside the musician The Weeknd, where his robots served as the backdrop to his worldwide tour. Hajime Sorayama’s sci-fi fueled fantasies and preoccupation with the female form, have resulted in a sprawling oeuvre―sketches, paintings, sculptures, and more―spanning thousands of pieces, earning him a permanent place on the mantle alongside Japanese pop-artists including Takashi Murakami, Yayoi Kusama, and the late Keiichi Tanaami. His die-hard fan base is global. While Sorayama is most widely known for his illustrations depicting Gynoids and pin-ups, his breadth of work over the last few decades, his work has grown to include iconic fashion collaborations, larger than life robotic sculptures―femenoids totalling up to eight-feet tall, a twelve-foot T-Rex sculpture, depictions of pop-culture icons of the West: Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and more. This new volume, insightfully edited and succinctly designed, widens the lens to showcase the artist’s undeniable influence on the art world and popular culture at large. Newly produced works are displayed alongside artworks pulled from the past; this weighty tome also includes a thoughtful selection of sought after collaborations with fashion and streetwear behemoths including Dior, Stella McCartney, Stüssy, Richardson World, Bearbrick, and more. Staying true to the otherworldly nature of the Sorayama’s work, this book is published on the occasion of a traveling retrospective of the artists’ work and is an an indispensable volume for fans of the artist as well as an essential for fans of sci-fiction, streetwear, and pop-culture as a whole.