Philadelphia City Paper "Last Chance"
Catch It or Regret It
By Holly Otterbein
Published: Oct 21, 2009

Like the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, Hiro Sakaguchi's paintings in the exhibit "Idle Daydream" invoke a complex, knotty fear — one that cleverly layers horror in between preciousness, childlike innocence and pastel colors. "People read my work as scary," says Sakaguchi. "Scary like a tiny stuffed bear holding a knife."

Take Bear Fishing (pictured), in which the Japanese-born local artist paints a dozen airplanes paddling eagerly upstream like fish, while being ripped in half by a Godzilla-size bear. Meanwhile, a rainbow glows in the right-hand corner, it's a beautiful day out, and a few tourists look onto the scene, seemingly unfazed. Does the scary-pretty piece comment on overpopulation? Globalism gone wild? Nature eventually swallowing man whole? Or is it simply about the fear of planes?

Kinda? "That idea came from a nature show, where salmon, after they grow up, returned to where they were born to lay eggs," says Sakaguchi, who moved to Philly 18 years ago. "And they go through all that trouble to get home only to be eaten by bears. I started associating the salmon with myself, when I take a plane to go back to my home, Japan."

Planes pop up frequently in Sakaguchi's works, which, in addition to his trips to Japan, may have something to do with the fact that he often watches the horizon speckle with them from his home near the Philadelphia International Airport. In School of Pinwheel Airplanes, there's such a critical mass of planes that the scene appears warlike. But, as usual, the chaos is inconsistent: The sky is bubbly blue, and the townhouses below the planes are unscathed.

Tying all this cutesiness and terror together is Sakaguchi's greatest talent — his disarming painting style, which is modest, youthful and akin to comic-book illustrations. "When you're a child, you're drawing your imagination onto paper, so you try to be as clear in your drawing as possible," he says. "My work is ethereal, so I try to do the same thing and paint as simply as I can."

Ends Oct. 27, Seraphin Gallery, 1108 Pine St., 215-923-7000, seraphin.squarespace.com.

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Posted on Fri, Sep. 25, 2009
Hiro Sakaguchi exhibits at Seraphin Gallery.
Paintings offering a mixture of memory and artistic fantasy
By Victoria Donohoe
For The Inquirer

 Bear Fishing, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 30" x 40"

Hiro Sakaguchi catches us off guard.

One moment, he could pass for an underground comic-book artist. The next moment, his paintings are being taken seriously by persons usually tuned in only to the higher reaches of artistic culture.

In Sakaguchi's exhibit "Idle Daydreams," at Seraphin Gallery, his rare combination of talents is on full view. Here's a Japanese-born local artist choosing unusual subject matter, yet portraying it with traditional forms.

Images in his work range from startlingly expansive to quite intimate, and they convey continuity with the past while embracing the present - all in the same picture.

Airplanes have fascinated Sakaguchi since his early childhood in Japan, and again now that he lives near Philadelphia International Airport.

This show's main airplane subject, poised between beatitude and anguish, is the Bear Fishing scene, so appealing and outdoorsy. It also is seemingly tranquil, until you realize that the "salmon" swimming upstream and caught as it leaps the waterfall by the bear is actually a modern-day passenger airliner.

Also, there are frequent war-image references throughout the display, most notably in Great Wall. It portrays an old Soviet armored tank, a Humvee with rocket launcher, a Civil War battalion, and a da Vinci tank - all actively trying to destroy the Chinese wall protecting a distant house.

Sakaguchi's mix of memory and fantasy in his art takes its cue from boredom he felt as a child. "I am trying to recapture what I was never able to do as a child with the means I have now," he said.

Having successfully achieved works that are visually compelling and at times conceptually disturbing, Sakaguchi now faces the challenge of moving beyond it.

 

Seraphin Gallery  l  Contemporary Philadelphia Art Gallery and Art Consultant 
1108 Pine St.  l  215-923-7000  l  seraphin@seraphingallery.com