About the artist: Kentaro Yoshida
Kentaro Yoshida is a Japanese illustrator based in Sydney, working in a style rooted in Japanese comic art and drawn straight from his everyday life. Through bold linework, playful characters and subtle humour, his design for our Advent Calendar invites us into his childhood home for the holidays, reimagining the shotengai shopping streets of his youth as a row of T2 tea houses dressed for Christmas.
Touches of his life in Sydney find their way in too - koalas on signboards, kangaroos overhead and even a surfboard tucked into the scene, blending his two homes into one street. Look closely and you'll find small stories hidden everywhere, like the missing cat poster inspired by one he spotted in real life. For Kentaro, every door on the calendar is its own little shopfront, and opening one feels like stepping inside.
