Bean Fashion by Takao Sakai

As you all can see, those are beans around his face.

Yes, as in those beans that we cook or boil to eat. Japanese people eat beans all the time but Takao Sakai uses them for style. Takao Sakai would be the first guy that i know to do food art. The only food that i eat together with red beans would be ice kacang or also known as the famous ABC. Asians should know what dessert is this. Many other people might find them disgusting since it looks all grossy but at the same time others might find them creative. Not just beard, even Batman or Darth vader helmet is possible. A few questions that Takao Sakai answered.

First of all, what attracts you to beans?

I have to explain: The beans I use are adzuki beans, which are one of the most popular ingredients in Japanese cooking with a long tradition of being used in sweets, called wagashi in Japanese [which we extensively showed you before]. Adzuki beans are said to bring good luck, that’s why we eat them as sweets. This image of happiness serves not only as a motif for me, I’m also really attracted to their texture and shape.

Is it about their consistency? Or the liquid they are in?

That’s not liquid but a way to make the beans glossy by boiling them first. That glossiness is a means of showing the deliciousness of the beans visually. When working with beans, I form them like papier-mâché and apply some colours with acrylic paints. Though that part is faked, it is just to show their glossiness realistically.

Your earlier approach with wagashi, Japanese sweets, was delicious – what inspired you to do that?

I was born and raised in the city, so I grew up in a culture that said we must continue old traditions and, at the same time, said we should create something new. People in my generation who grew up in those circumstances sought out new forms of happiness. In my early works, I tried to express a new form of happiness for contemporary Japan that references Japanese sweets as a form of cultural heritage, but puts them in a totally new setting. The same is true of my current works.

Lol to the picture above. Definitely a guy trying to pose like an Indian lady. XD Takao Sakai is not only talented in using beans as fashion but other food as well and mostly are sweets found in Japan. Definitely gotta thank Takao for showing us that even food can be art and bringing us closer to Japanese red beans, so children! eat your red beans at home or else you will grow a red bean beard. See more pics of his awesome art in his gallery and his bean portrait project site. Wanna know more about his way of thinking and his art?

Link
A few more pictures

One of his artworks.

I almost mistaken some girls as guys until i zoom in the picture.