HIRO SAKAGUCHI
MORRIS GALLERY (PAFA)
The loose use of childlike colors and storybook graphics in the work adorning the entryway to PAFA’s Morris Gallery enthusiastically invites viewers into Hiro Sakaguchi’s solo show “No Particular Place to Go.” Once inside, the viewer discovers that below the surface of these innocent images hides the artist’s search for perfection. Closer examination reveals that the gestural marks on each of his works contrast the painfully controlled pencil lines which form the foundation of each art piece – from prints to oil paintings to drawings directly on the wall. This quiet implication of the artist’s sophisticated intentions is made even more clear by the eraser marks left on many of the pieces, noting the lines that did not make the final cut. They appear to be left on purpose as a simple imprint of the memory of the journey the artist took to get to each piece as we see them today.
The gallery is filled with works that span the last five years. From small sketches to sloppy-style prints to large oil paintings, the thread that ties them together is the increasingly obvious truth that everything the artist is doing is deliberate. Sakaguchi’s work seems to eradicate the fine line between fantasy and reality. We see the small pencil drawing for “A Boat with Hibachi Engine” from 2009 and turn to see it realized in full scale as a sculpture on the floor behind us. So convincing is the sculpture that, for just a moment, one wonders if it might just work when the charcoal is lit.
In the enormous oil painting entitled “Great Wall” (2011) the manmade wonder divides the canvas diagonally and is instantly recognizable. There are vibrant colors and active lines all around it. Small explosions are shooting out ammunition, which look like jet planes. Each blast is coming from a variety of toy-like tanks that litter the lower right side of the canvas. The Wall appears to be protecting an isolated, rural (rather American-looking) yard complete with log cabin, picnic table, a bike leaning against a pink tree and a clothesline running behind the house. In-between those tanks are men dressed in knight’s armor, charging forward with swords drawn. They are not entirely out of place, as a large castle rises up out of the middle of the wall.
The longer you look at each piece, the more complex imagery you find. Sakaguchi’s repetitive themes of boats, planes and tanks all appear playful against his depiction of nature’s profound size and strength. In an image that references Niagara Falls, complete with rainbow, an enormous bear is “fishing” for planes. These aircrafts relate to the bear’s proportions and placement as though they were salmon moving upstream. The age-old theme of man versus nature is retold in Sakaguchi’s work from the point of view of man’s futile efforts to conquer nature, whether by land, sea or air.
One might assume that Sakaguchi’s hybrid dreamscapes are rooted in his own hybrid world. A Japanese native, he came to Philadelphia to earn his BFA from UArts in 1993 and then his MFA from PAFA in 1996. While this exhibition is part of the gallery’s “Emerging Artists Series,” don’t let the misnomer lead you astray. Sakaguchi has consistently had solo shows, exhibiting internationally for more than a decade. He also has work in numerous collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art. On view until August 28th, this solo show allows the viewer to gain a snapshot of the work of a prolific artist caught between as many worlds as he, himself, can possibly imagine.
