Lot 1566: FUYUKI MAEHARA

FUYUKI MAEHARA
(B. 1962)
One Moment (Vent and Cigarette)
a set of two oil, Japanese cypress and magnolia wood sculptures
Vent: 14 x 24.5 x 3. 6 cm. (5 1/2 x 9 5/8 x 1 3/8 in.)
Cigarette: 5.7 x 1.1x 0.7 cm. (2 1/4 x 3/8 x 1/4 in.)
Executed in 2009

Tokyo, Japan, Yokoi Fine Art, Fuyuki Maehara transient, 8-30 January 2010.

Throughout human history, poetry and art embrace more readily the eternity of life than the present instant of it. Fuyuki Maehara, nonetheless, opts for an entirely distinct expression and aesthetics; eternity and the instant are simultaneously conveyed as a means to explore their entanglement and interdependence. In One Moment (Lot 1566), the artist recreates by wood carve a particular scene of our everyday life - a scene that manifests the moment of change, from existence to termination. The lighted cigarette represents transience and glamour; extinguished before long, it communicates the lamentable elapse of time. The sense of massiveness, as the wood carve reflects, seems to have frozen the moment, rendering it a transcendence of the boundary between time and incarnation, life and death. The smoke, drifting up and away, encapsulates the viewers in the present, prepossessing moment of tranquility. Maehara is adroit in his use of wood as the medium of articulating precisely and neatly his conceptions of time and life. A highly dexterous carving skill is demonstrated; the quotidian, still-life object is carved into a block of solid wood to realize its true state of existence without a single trace of joint. The remarkably delicate woodwork, which in general entails a year of strenuous effort, showcases the astounding concentration and avidity of the artist. Maehara purposefully mars the carving with broken corners, cracks, and pigments that texturize blemishes. By doing so he reveals, palpably, the flow of time and a faint aura of rue and gloominess - an ambience characteristic of Japanese Haiku poem - that pervade his work. This poetic reflection, together with the realistic, photograph-like expression, impel the viewers to observe and experience afresh the fragments of their ordinary lives, calling to their minds the beauty and ethos of living.