Manabu Hasegawa: ‘Yashima’

Manabu Hasegawa, runner up in the 2001 Kirin Awards and winner of the Special Prize in the 13th Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art in 2010 is holding a solo exhibition.

Hasegawa creates real to life three-dimensional works using pencil and paper. With the theme of ‘weapons’ pistols and automatic rifles are displayed as if they are in a gun shop. Get up close to the artworks to see that the shading is achieved using lead pencil on paper. One of the attractions of these works is that they look both three-dimensional and also like a flat picture.

The insides are hollow so the serious atmosphere associated with them being weapons is only superficial. If you imagine crushing them you realise that they would smash into pieces in one go. Because the fragility of Hasegawa’s artwork it is fleeting one cannot help but feel affection for it.