Following his travels to Japan shortly after the Tohoku earthquake, artist/musician Devendra Banhart produced a series of evocative drawings responding to the natural disaster and its effects on the people of Japan.

Exhibitions of these drawings were shown in Tokyo and Kyoto with the purpose to raise funds to support, the Mother’s Radiation Lab Fukushima, the Tohoku Youth Orchestra, and the Foster Care for Children in Fukushima.

Vanishing Wave is the collection of these ink drawings accompanied by personal texts by Devendra Banhart, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ryu Takahashi and Yusuke Nagai. A testament to the tide-like characteristics of memory, grief, and pain.

REVIEW

 “I was appreciating the drawings that evoke organic living things like microbes, cells, or sea creatures, when it became painful to learn that behind them were the memories of the [Tohoku] earthquake disaster. This book is beautiful, yet full of sadness.”

— Ryuichi Sakamoto

ARTIST BIO

 Devendra Banhart is a Venezuelan-American singer-songwriter and visual artist. His drawings have been exhibited, among others, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, and Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art.

He has released nine albums and has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Bonnaroo, and Coachella. Vanishing Wave is his third book, and his second published by Anteism Books.