Tomiyuki Sakuta

An inky, subaquatic portrait from Sakura, “Joris” is part of the “Friends Series” — the artist deriving a subject from friends or familiar faces, then accentuating or manipulating particular values within their portrait to explore their sense of self, as well as his own. The creased, gently floating form suggests a particularly delicate and submerged skin, small beads tucked unto folds and pockets of the surface. The sharp lines and white frame of the glasses sit in contrast to the delicate phrasing of the shaded tones around it, and lend a interesting pulp-graphic intonation.

Sakura explores personality through a merging of abstract or non-human elements with the recognisable traits and shapes of a portrait — using the willingness of the viewers brain to find a face from an unsuspecting origin. “Marcel” finds that human aspect in the subtlest denomination, the illusion of face projected through a hazy build up of spheres in a cloud-like sub-summation — the shapes carefully arranged to delicately suggest features and muscles in a use of positive and negative space. A set of six forms of unknown calibre (but reminiscent of organic cells, particularly sperm, or sheaths of wheat, or finger-like protrusions) penetrate into or out of the mass and suggest a violent and possibly sexualised combination. The work is afforded such a fine detail through the artists combined use of intaglio and chine-collé printing process, each allowing a very fine control of line, and the junction allows a textural variation and added depth between the base figure and the swarming cell-like entities.

Wild, alien form by Sakura, whose work over the last two decades with intaglio printing has conjured onto paper a variety of strange and fascinating creatures. Large eyeballs on thin limbs extend over a single, encompassing mouth — the oversized elements and dual, dripping uvulas adding a sexualised tone that is subtly reinforced by Sakura’s common usage of female names (this is “Marilyse”) for his work.

Liberating portraiture from strict representation, Sakura uses his prints to reflect on internal conflicts and fantasies, harmonising those perceptions with the image to create a portrayal that acknowledges its own subjectivity — and searches for a universal emotive language. The surrealist abstraction of “Tomas” reduces down to a repetition of mouths and lips (particularly pouting and suggestively female) and extols a wonderment that might topple into obsessiveness over this one trait — or clarifies a personality to its single, definitive point.