sakamoto 
Genshin is a yaki-e, or pyrographic artist, who draws pictures through the process of burning. His tool isa soldering iron, and his canvas is leather, rather than the more commonly used wood. He chooses a minimally processed hide known as nume for its unique texture. His mostly traditional designs include ukiyo-e beauties, actors, sumo wrestlers, tigers, cats, dogs, insects and other creatures. Some of his images are based on erotic shunga.
Born Shiozawa Yoshiaki on 22 June 1958 in Takasago, Katsushika City, Genshin developed late as an artist after running away from home at the age of 15.
I did everything just to eat, selling tofu, working food stalls and restaurant kitchens, collecting rubbish and so on. I liked movies and was in and out of Toei’s Oizumi Studios, where I landed small roles in some films by Hiroki Matsukata. I hooked up with the sister of my classmate while I was sleeping at his house, and got married for the first time when I was 19. I lived pretty rough.
When I was around 25, I joined a gang in Takasago and started life as a yakuza. I had never met people like this and was attracted by their powerful physiques. Until then, I was getting into punch-ups every day, 365 days a year, but I soon settled down. It was partly because the gang imposed very strict discipline, and I had been determined to join them. I left my wife and children at that point, and I cut ties with my parents, too. If something goes wrong, you don’t want your family in trouble.
Our first obligation was to live-in, and look after our bosses. Cooking, laundry, everything. I had to wash his body in the bath. I was scared enough of my own father, but I was also scared of him. It was a long apprenticeship and it was tough, but the harder it became, the more I was determined to endure. Eventually, you become able to do things other people can’t do.
That was more than 30 years ago. These days, no one gets into fights so easily, but back then it was exciting. We walked around in bulletproof vests, and checked out security cameras and escape routes for when we conducted kachikomi (raid). If our boss was hospitalised, we knew rivals might try to attack him by posing as staff or dressing as women, and we had to spot them.
My first boss died at the age of 42, and I went from one brother’s clan to another until I was around 50, when I formed the Shiozawa clan in Takasago and became a loan shark. I drove a Rolls Royce limousine, a Mercedes limousine and other stretch limos. But the Rolls couldn’t cross the Keisei railway level crossing because the bottom of the chassis scraped the road. I had to take the long way around, so that car was a pain in the ass.
I think I was at my physical peak in my mid-30s. I didn’t feel I could ever lose a fight, whether it was with a sumo rikishi or a pro wrestler. I ate and drank heavily every day, every night. You see, I thought I had to be bigger than my boss, to ward off the bullets! So I ate a lot and drank a lot, I loved it. Each of us would eat 10 portions of yakiniku. Five servings of rice every time. That’s how much we ate. With sushi, we’d eat two pieces at a time! In one night, we would go to seven restaurants. And the drinking, we would each have three bottles of brandy, shochu or whatever.
So my daily routine was, I had to drink until about 5am, then sleep for about four hours and be at headquarters by 10am. My first illness was diabetes at the age of 42, followed by lung cancer and pulmonary tuberculosis. I remember accompanying my boss home trying to look as cool as possible so he wouldn’t take me for a weak fool, then ordering one of our drivers to take me to hospital. I was admitted straight away. Being a yakuza is a stressful job, isn’t it?
I also have tattoos, and after a year of interferon treatment for hepatitis C, I returned to the field, but this time my kidneys got worse. My body was completely worn out, and I knew if I continued like this, I wouldn’t be able to protect my boss, and I might end up causing him more trouble than I had already. So I started looking for the right time to retire.
At the beginning of 2015, I prepared a medical certificate and called on one of my seniors to help me. I knew there was a gathering at headquarters, so I packed the necessary tools and we drove there together. We sat in the car in the car park, and when he swung the hammer onto the knife, off flew my little finger, onto the floor. We panicked. We wondered where it went.
I was sick and stayed in hospital for some time. To help me cope with the pain (although yakuza are not allowed to say ‘pain’), I asked one of the young orderlies to buy me some coloured pencils and a sketchbook. I had never drawn anything, and that was the first time. I made a colourful picture and it made me feel good, and it was also a sort of physical release.
The first time I saw pyrographic art was after I opened a fashion goods shop in Koiwa in 2013. I thought I’d give it a try and got some leftover leather from a supplier, and it worked. I didn’t know anything about it, and I didn’t learn from anyone. But the first thing I liked was the texture of the leather. I made a lot of work, and held my first solo exhibition on the shop’s first anniversary.
Although still active as a gangster at the time of his first exhibition, Genshin insists he’s no yakuza lieutenant or godfather, but merely a pyrographic artist. The seal with which he stamps his works was designed by a detective from the Metropolitan Police Department, with whom he had a long association. Now almost 10 years into his new self-taught vocation, he pays no heed to the Japanese art media, but since around 2016 has been approached several times to stage salon shows in Europe. Grappling with serious illnesses, he has often been hospitalised and endured major surgery. He continues to undergo dialysis while working daily on his leather.