Encircling eerie orbs, architectural parts and neon indicators hover above city landscapes and fields of detritus in Masakatsu Sashie’s oil work. His fantastical, post-apocalyptic scenes envision Earth “as a representation of the universe,” the artist tells Colossal.
Sashie provides, “This led me to the idea of symbolically expressing the sphere. My inspiration came from designs that feature circles symbolically composed within rectangles, such as the Japanese national flag, Hanafuda cards, and mandalas.”
Sashie begins by gathering photos associated to a theme, reminiscent of signage, getting old buildings, or retro motifs. He works from his personal pictures, along with photos he finds on-line. Likening the composition to a two-dimensional assemblage, he then merges all the shapes into floating globes, rendered in oil on canvas.
Devoid of individuals, Sashie’s landscapes interrogate the character of mass consumerism, waste, and getting old infrastructure. Like a few of sci-fi’s most iconic spaceships—assume the Demise Star from Star Wars—the illuminated spheres seem to run on inexplicable sources of vitality, leaving their inside workings or doable inhabitants a complete thriller.
In the event you plan to be in Melbourne in Might, Sashie’s work is slated for an exhibition at Outré Gallery, adopted by one other present in July at i GALLERY in Osaka. Within the meantime, dive deeper into the artist’s imaginary worlds on Instagram.
