Japanese sculptor Yoshitoshi Kanemaki captures the emotional complexities of youth in his glitched 3-dimensional portraits. Through wood carving, Kanemaki transforms tree trunks into figures—often young women—whose faces are multiplied in expressions that range from distressed to joyful in a single sculpture.
The figures’ casual, natural poses seem to capture them in real time: some of the contemporary artist’s characters perch on chairs mid-conversation, and others gesture with their arms to express confidence or bashfulness through these wood carving gorgeous figures.
In his finished modern art works, Yoshitoshi usually uses lifelike coloring, but for one recent sculpture shown in detail below, the artist experimented with creating the sensation of an out-of-focus image by using soft, blurred shapes and colors to complete the expression.
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Japanese artist Yoshitoshi Kanemaki departs from the traditional norms of wood carving techniques by introducing surreal motifs into his sculpture art. Each face of the wood carving art is different, it portrays how we do not always show what we’re feeling and that some emotions are much deeper than we are aware of.
His wood sculptures are in life-size scale, they create certain proximity to the person who’s staring at it and really makes one wonder about the meaning behind this wooden statue.
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See also: Daniel Arsham’s Storytelling Through Wall Sculptures in Moco Museum
