Circus is a collection of illustrations by Japanese artist Higuchi Yuko (ヒグチユウコ). I’ve actually come across some of her work before, illustration pieces that centered around cat motifs, and personally those were not particularly up my alley of taste. However, her excellent poster for the horror movie Midsommar (2019 – see twitter image further down ) bought renewed interest and attention to her work, and it just so happened that I was able to browse the contents of this art book during my time in Tokyo.

While I am still not a fan of her illustrations that feature kittens, which is why I’ve mostly left them out in this review, her more surrealistic and phantasmagoric pieces are fantastic, and I find her designs and creative sensibilities for movie poster designs to be most excellent; quite a few like Suspiria ( image above ) are featured in this book.

Higuchi Yuko is also the artist who illustrated this striking poster for Ari Aster's Midsomnar (2019). It is not included in this art book though ( book was released before the movie came out ). pic.twitter.com/KEeLBaBAm7

— blauereiter (@blauereiter) July 10, 2023

Her cat themed illustrations notwithstanding ( my personal taste ), Higuchi Yuko’s imaginative compositions are complemented by her technical excellence with those intricate and elaborate line-work. Her movie poster designs are the highlight of the book for me, even though the aforementioned Midsommar piece is not included ( hopefully in a future publication ). Recommended.

“Circus – Higuchi Yuko Art Book ヒグチユウコ画集” art book details :

Dimensions – 7.68 x 0.79 x 10.43 inches
Softcover, 224 pages
Full color, In Japanese language

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