January 31st, 2022
Shichigoro-Shingo, a Japan-based artist (or two), creates work that blends Japanese sci-fi manga style with dark and heavy atmosphere that in many ways recalls H.R. Giger. Giger, who died in 2014, was the Swiss godfather of dark art who is most strongly identified with the 1979 horror science fiction movie Alien. In Shichigoro-Shingo’s work, we see the grayscale palette and fusion of organic and mechanical forms that made Giger’s work so recognizable. Tubes and vents, artificial limbs, skeletal metalwork, machines with flowing organic lines — with Giger, you were often not sure where the sentient being ends and the mechanical structure begins.
So it is with Shichigoro-Shingo. Some of the images are so perfectly Gigeresque that you wonder whether the master’s ghost is guiding the artist. In others, Shichigoro-Shingo portrays plucky heroines gone cyborg-goth, and drained of their cuteness. Life in the post-apocalypse — you don’t make it through with flying colors, or any colors at all.
Yet Shichigoro-Shingo’s characters project something we don’t associate with Giger: Hope. These are warriors who’ve been in the shit; they’re grubby, cracked, and weary, but they’re ready for the next round. They’re survivors. We’d like to know more of their story.
To see hundreds of pieces of Shichigoro-Shingo’s work, visit Shichigoro.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook and DeviantArt as well.
The Definitive brand in fantasy, science fiction, and horror.
