PROVENANCE:
Christie's Hong Kong, May 25, 2014, Lot.715

Planet
NATSUKI URUSHIHARA

Natsuki Urushihara, an active contemporary artist from Japan. Graduated from painting at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, concentrated in ancient techniques for Japanese art, emphasizing ancient animals in his early work. For instance, Urushihara explore the “Two-sided” nature by contrasting colors and make use of context with adorable images such as panda, penguin etc; he nevertheless hinted the reality world and led the audience to question if an insanity society with sensibility and peacefulness on the surface exists. Urushihara utilizes metaphor to express his fascination to the imagery of heaven from the old world, while making attempts to create new artwork. He probe into the social distance and social interaction, creating a resonance with his audience, by exploiting human figures in his recent work.

“Planet” is an artwork inspired by the Yakushi-ji from Nara of Japan, Japanese traditional painting techniques with hint of Buddhist painting is applied. Urushihara believes, although very common, this is surreally beautiful and decided to create his artwork based on this. Urushihara explained, “ from the phenomena of the reality world I perceived, I replace it with a delusive, mysterious and eventful world with visual pleasure.”