Campbell La Pun is a New Zealand-born, Tokyo-based artist whose practice is inseparable from the city in which it was formed — Tokyo, often described as the original megacity, whose dense population, cutting-edge economy, and intersection of Eastern and Western visual cultures generate an environment of unparalleled sensory intensity. Born in New Zealand, trained in Melbourne, and now working from the city that gives his art its essential character, La Pun channels the visual cachet of urban Japan — advertising, anime, manga, retro video games, iconic movie characters, the global marketplace's dizzying proliferation of motifs, colours, and forms — into paintings of considerable formal energy and cultural specificity.
His technique matches his environment. Meticulously crafted stencils, aerosol, and acrylic paint on wood and canvas combine in works that carry the speed and visual density of the city that inspired them — compositions that do not invite slow contemplation so much as immediate immersion, the eye moving through them as the body moves through a Tokyo street: fast, stimulated, and constantly finding something new. His influences span Warhol and Basquiat alongside Anthony Lister and Madsaki — what he describes simply as "all the legends" — a lineage that connects his practice to the history of Pop Art while grounding it firmly in the specific visual world of contemporary urban Japan.
His Bottled Chic and Modern Vintage works — available through Creed Gallery — bring this urban visual intelligence to bear on the iconography of luxury and aspiration that is as present in Tokyo as in London. Available through Creed Gallery, Ascot, for collectors across Berkshire, Surrey, and London.
