Acrylic on board

22 x 27.3 cm. 8 5/8 x 10 3/4 in.

Signed in English “Mararu” on lower right
Provenance：Private Collection,Japan.

Masaru Shichinohe
Unlike the “kawaii” and “superflat” aesthetics prevailing in Japan,Masaru Shichinohe’s oeuvres are impacted by the artist’s fascination with religious alter pieces from the mid-century Western world and Taruho Inagaki’s fantasy fiction. With fine classical techniques and modeling capabilities,the artist weaves into his art scientific principles such as gravity,optics as well as occultism,creating a unique style that follows neither conventions nor trends. Surrealistic and full of references to art history,Shichinohe’s art is a door opening to the wonder-rooms in the foreign dimension that guarantee feasts for the eyes.
“An aura with a mineral-like texture,dreamlike sense of emptiness and nostalgia” underpins Shichinohe’s oeuvres. Thanks to the artist’s meticulousness,his early works are generally small in scale. He works mainly with wood panels and acrylic paint. The artist also often frames his own works. Of the three art pieces in this auction,such is the case with Sphere Club and Devoured by the Box.
In the bottom right foreground of Sphere Club（2002）,a boy in a yellow top stands with his back to the viewer,whose view is directed by the boy’s positioning towards a red sphere suspended by a thread and swaying in pendulum motion. The red sphere pops out against a simple and light background of sky and ground. Pendulum and vertical motions have long been inspirations to Shichinohe’s artistic pursuit. Between 1990s and 2009,he created a number of works around this theme. But Sphere Club,unlike his two earlier creations that focus on the physics equation of pendulum motion,or a later one in 2009 that has a girl on the left,directs its viewer’s attention to the motion of the sphere itself through its composition. As if hypnotized,the viewer perceives dynamicity,in the still image,of the sphere swaying. The large chunks of colours bring forth the intensity in the composition,and the artist’s distinctive and fun sense of an isolated dimension.
Box plays a key role in Shichinohe’s early works. In 2002,he published a solo catalogue entitled Hako Shounen（Box Boy）. Combining still boxes and his wild imagination,Shichinohe has hatched numerous fantastical plots. In his paintings,the box is a metaphor for a foreign dimension that is disturbing,frightening,farcical,absurd and uncanny in one. In Devoured by the Box,the artist has built an enigmatic temporal space. The cute and chubby angels resemble those in the works of Italian Renaissance painter Raphael. Two of them seem to be emerging out of a crevice of another time zone,one holding a yellow daisy to encourage their friend at the lower centre to enter a box,the other to record the event with an old-style analog camera. What will face the angel at the bottom – a sealed box or an unknown dimension？Shichinohe has always been skillful in leaving room for the viewer’s imagination.
Pop Up! is a blend of most of Shichinohe’s frequently employed devices. These devices complement each other to bring out a dramatic visual effect. The red and white checkerboard tiles in an exaggerated linear perspective form a deep and vast stage arena,while the two bush-like bundles of curtains on the sides intensify the stage effects. As a whooping little boy at the centre jumps out of a top hat that often appears in magic shows,to the right in the middle ground,a personified bunny in a suit holding a shower head stares at the boy in awe. In this whimsical magic show,the two reversed roles give rise to a surrealistic sense of absurdity,as if the boy,an “organism” cultured by the gentle bunny,is growing up inch by inch,thanks to the bunny’s irrigation. The top hat,an unknown dimension,encompasses the viewers in a rich classical ambience,leaving them to form and savor their own fantasies of the distant world.

Price estimate:
HKD：80,000 - 100,000
USD：10,300 - 12,900

Auction Result:
HKD:118,000