Director / Other / Illustrator

Ran Tondabayashi

とんだ林蘭

Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo artist working across illustration, painting, collage, sculpture and video, and an Art Director for CD jackets and advertising. Her name was given to her by rekishi (Takafumi Ikeda), and her clients run from music, Rekishi, Kaela Kimura, Tokyo ska Paradise Orchestra, Aimyon, to fashion and retail: the Laforet Harajuku Christmas campaign, coach, AGNÈS B., Paul Smith and Mihara Yasuhiro. Directed Aimyon’s Naked Heart, co-shooting it with the artist. Graduated from the stylist course at Bunka Fashion College; entirely self-taught as an artist, and built her career by posting a new piece to Instagram every day until the commissions came, she says she started at 25 with no industry contacts and treated daily output as a discipline. Her method, in her words: she never plans the whole image, starts from nothing, moves materials around, and prefers to make many quick pieces rather than one slow one. Collage began after seeing JAN ŠVANKMAJER’s animation. Profiled by Cinra, Sendenkaigi (“a turning point through advertising work”), Sōen, Houyhnhnm’s Tokyo Sequence, and as a guest on Spinear.