by Agape Charmani
Yoshitoshi Kanemaki is a Japanese artist known for his bizarre sculptures. Kanemaki’s work is formed by a series of human-like artworks, only with more heads, body parts and unconventional habits. Playing with the concepts of life and death, the artist adds both artistic and philosophical layers to his characters, who might be sculpted, but their struggles seem more painful than real humans’.
Projecting unfortunate, joyful and humorous events in a person’s life onto his sculptures, Kanemaki hopes to leave the viewer with a few questions, “My sculpture questions ‘What is life?’ ‘What is death?’ I know there is no clear answer, but again today I carve while asking, ‘Memento mori?’ I used Japanese wood carving techniques to express the western theme of ‘Memento mori’.
