MISHIMA

Yukio Mishima’s life is one of the most instructive of any major artist. A prolific and internationally acclaimed author, he grew disenchanted with words and step-by-step transformed his life into a work of art. This was not lunacy – as many wish to believe- but a brutally logical progression from being the “seer” (one who perceives art) to being the “seen” (the art object itself). Mishima became one of his own literary creations; he splashed his final statement on the canvas of his own body. The aggressively contradictory nature of Mishima’s life defies the objective distance of conventional biography. I chose instead to explore the qualities which brought me to Mishima. I divided his life into 4 thematic “chapters”, illustrating each chapter with scenes from his last day, his past, and