Perdido Street Station, Scene No. 4

SHŪICHI KUSAMORI (B. 1961)

Perdido Street Station, Scene No. 4

gouache on paper

15 15/16 x 12 1/8 inches (40.5 x 30.8 cm)

Executed in 2024-2025.

Born in 1961 in Kanagawa, Shūichi Kusamori has painted backgrounds for Japanese animation since 1980, from Grave of the Fireflies and Patlabor: The Movie to Ghost in the Shell, before serving as art director on Metropolis, Innocence, X, and Psycho-Pass. For much of his career he was credited as Shūichi Hirata, before taking his wife’s family name in 2012.

In 2023, Kusamori was asked what he would paint if he could choose the subject himself. He chose China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station and its city, New Crobuzon: a world of industry, machinery, and magic. He created four paintings to be presented at his first solo exhibition at Riekeles Gallery in 2025, of which this is one of them.

Scene No. 4 positions the viewer in the street looking upwards. Buildings press in from both sides, adorned with lamps and colorful signage. The wet pavement catches the light, and an immense gothic tower rises through the blue-gray haze beyond the frame. It is a city built with the same precision Kusamori brings to animation.

Background artists decide the weather of a film, and in Kusamori's cities the weather is nearly always the same: cold grays and greens, wet surfaces, mist engulfing the far end of the street, and artificial light burning through it in reds. He paints places that are both harsh to live in and impossible to look away from.