sakamoto 
Born in Tsubetsu-cho, Hokkaido, in 1946, Onishi worked at the Yokohama Post Office before moving to the US in 1971, where he enrolled at the School of Visual Arts in New York. When he returned to Tokyo the following year, illustrators were attracting considerably more attention than fine artists. He created album sleeves for Herbie Hancock’s Feets Don’t Fail Me Now and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Summer Nerves, as well as magazine covers for Yasei Jidai, the opening titles of the Fuji TV program Hirake! Ponkikki and other projects.
From the end of the 1980s, Onishi shifted his focus from illustration to three-dimensional objects. He remarked, “The ‘seasonal’ art jobs that come and go are for the younger generation. If I am to do something different, I need the depth of nature.” In 1996 he returned to Hokkaido, and in Tsubetsu-cho the following year began building his theme park, ‘Shige-chan Land,’ which he finally opened in the spring of 2001.
Shige-chan Land is located about an hour out of Memanbetsu Airport. A bright red-painted silo and hut suddenly appear on a hillside along National Route 240, which connects Kushiro and Abashiri. The former ranch of 6.5 acres is dotted with renovated sheds that Onishi calls ‘houses,’ interspersed with colourful outdoor sculptures.
The houses are named for body parts and include Head House, Eye House, Hand House, and so on, and each features a series of works. Driftwood found on the Okhotsk coast, tree roots retrieved from the forest, animal bones, rusted cans, broken farm tools; Onishi has breathed life into materials that, depending on your perception, may be precious traces, or rubbish. With little contrivance, the works are lined up in rows, oozing kindness and respect for nature, as if the artist has merely lent his hand to the process of things undergoing transformation.