Japanese artist, Junko Mizuno, has a very distinguishable style—her works, renowned for their vibrant colors and luscious figures and a fascination with the macabre, have garnered much deserved attention and acclaim.  Her latest show with Nucleus will showcase her earlier illustrations from her book, Cinderalla.  Skimming through these pieces, it’s difficult to absorb them without a piqued curiosity—the drawings are so imaginative and surreal, so vivid and captivating, one can’t help but wonder what it may all mean.  Luckily, Junko was nice enough to answer some of these pressing issues.  
Through a brief interview, Junko unpacked the layers to her artwork, revealing that her work, while striking in terms of subject matter, was ultimately a product of intuition and her own personal experiences.  Here’s what she had to say when we asked her about her choice of juxtaposing the grotesque with the cute:
 

“I really don't have anything I want to convey in my art. I make art for my pleasure and feel very lucky that I can make a living on it. I wonder why some people seem to notice only cuteness and grotesqueness in my work. My art is a reflection of myself and it has a lot of elements in it just like I do. Not only just cuteness and grotesqueness. I grew up enjoying "cute" Japanese stuff, I also enjoy some B-horror movies, I like silly Japanese comedy shows, I love food etc. etc... and they are all in my art! It's just natural that I'm influenced by many different things. I've never tried to mix only cuteness and grotesqueness into art just to shock people.”

When asked about her decision to depict her female characters as being strong willed while also being very sexualized, Junko responded by saying that this was a choice based upon her interest in drawing the female form.

“I just love drawing women and I feel liberated when I depict them as energetic and feisty. But I'm not trying to send out messages by my work at all. My art is basically very personal. The female characters in my work might be my ideal self, but it's not that I'm saying all women should be like them.”

As for the imaginative landscapes that Junko has molded, she added that these too, were also intuitively designed, meant only to be a vehicle for her own fantastic vision. 

“There's no logic to them at all! They are just my fantasies so you don't need to take them too seriously. I just want people to enjoy them however they want. I know they may have meanings if psychologically analyzed,  but I don't feel the need to do it. I want to stay spontaneous. If I think too much, my work gets boring!” 

The remainder of the interview focused on Cinderalla, how such project came into fruition and what inspired Junko to add her own twists to the classic fairy tale.

“It was actually a request from the editors. When we decided to make a series of graphic novels, I wanted to do my original stories. But the editors thought the story of my previous comic "Pure Trance" was not good enough and assumed I didn't have the
ability to make decent stories. So they came up with the idea to base the story on fairy tales.
The concept of the project was making my version of Cinderella so I had to give it my own twists. Since Cinderalla is over ten years old now, I don't remember what exactly I was influenced by... It's really fun to read my old comic. I can enjoy it as if it's something new because I usually forget about my work soon after I finish it. So when I read it after a while, I'm always like,  "What was I thinking?" I must have been crazy!" and find myself laughing at my own work."

Junko also spoke of how her work on Cinderalla was a great stepping-stone in her artistic career.

"It was my first time finishing a long story at once (In Japan, comics are usually serialized in magazines and collected into books once they have enough number of pages) so it gave me confidence as a comic artist. I couldn't use the computer at the time we were making the Japanese edition, so I had to have this designer guy color the pages for me. He was kind of reluctant and ignored a lot of my requests so I was not happy with the result at all.  It led me to start learning how to use the computer which led me to succesfully color the US edition of Cinderalla. This was a result I was quite happy with." 

When asked about what would be coming up, Junko happily replied that she’s currently working on an up-coming food-themed art show.  Keep your eyes peeled and appetite wetted for this one!

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