I bought Shibari & Irezumi Art while visiting Tokyo at Vanilla Gallery. The book is a 120-page softcover publication, bilingual in English and Japanese, focusing on the connection between shibari and irezumi.
Ozuma Kaname (小妻要, 1939–2011) was a painter and artist from Tokyo. He worked closely with Japanese tattoo artists, most notably Horiyoshi III, and is known for his detailed paintings on silk showing tattooed bodies in rope. Here is some information from the Vanilla Gallery website:
Ozuma was born in Niigata Prefecture in 1939. He learned to paint from his uncle, a Japanese-style painter, before moving to Tokyo to begin his painting career. He began to draw kinbaku and torture imagery using pointillism technique when he contributed his works to "Kitan Club," a pioneering BDSM magazine, and eventually established his own unique world of work by incorporating Japanese painting techniques as well. He later published his works symbolizing shibari and tattoos in many magazines such as "SM Select" ,"SM King" and "SM Secret Novel." He used the name "Yoko Ozuma" for his torture art and "Kaname Ozuma" for his tattoos and genre paintings, and continued to paint lyrical works reflecting the inner nature of women, where sensuality and poetic sentiment cross in the midst of gruesome scenes.
This book is a collection of his amazing works. It also has an introduction essay written by Toshiki Soma.
If you are interested in Kinbaku, Japanese aesthetics, and the visual history around rope and tattoo, this book belongs in your library.
Bibliographic information
Ozuma, Kaname. Shibari & Irezumi Art. 120 pages, bilingual English and Japanese, softcover. Tokyo: Éditions Treville (Treville Publishing), 2025. Available from the publisher.