KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY is pleased to announce the opening of Kanji Hasegawa’s Solo Exhibition, decay, remains, on Saturday, May 27th, 2023. 

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Hasegawa, who received his B.F.A. and M.F.A. at Tokyo University of the Arts and had been heavily influenced by punk rock culture, became interested in Buddhism while studying sculpture in his art school, finding the similarity in the process of art making and the Buddhism spirit and punk rock culture, as they all undergo the figuration of shapeless concepts to be shared with others. Completing his training at Eiheiji-temple, Hasegawa works as a Buddhist monk and artist, gaining high recognition in Japan and abroad while participating in museum exhibitions such as the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art. 

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Hasegawa naturally creates harmony by multiplying different concepts and time frames of diverse materials. For example, he often presents plants with unique origins, such as cannabis weed, poppy, rose, lotus, or non-native grass, combined with various vases he creates. The plants, with even their petals and leaf veins reproduced through exquisite wood carvings, are covered with pseudo-urushi lacquer and gold leaf and then sooted with Japanese candles, condensing the passage of time placed as Buddhist artifacts placed in temples. These meticulous wood carvings, combined with either ceramic vases in the shape of contemporary motifs or antiquity-remade vases to reposition historical contexts, have demonstrated Hasegawa's transcendent perspectives.

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In this exhibition, “decay, remains,” Hasegawa uses dying plants as his motif for the first time. Hasegawa, who has been emphasizing that “sculpture is a medium that conveys time,” deeply thinks about time—the only thing equally given to everything on earth—and the end of life, given to all livings regardless of species. 

Artist Statement

I make a work of art using flowers in my room as its motif.
 
The flowers die before the sculpture is completed. 
The artwork is a reminder of the fact that the flowers were here. 

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Although I have been working with a long-lived medium of sculpture, 
I have yet to feel I am creating something that will last beyond my lifetime. 

Looking at the withering flowers, I think. 
Beyond life and death, only the works remain. 

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Kanji Hasegawa