Here is some interesting assemblage work, from an artist who has mastery craftsmanship. His material is used skateboards. I'm not sure if the conceptualization is super strong, but visually they are quite fun!
Moose, 2010
used skateboards
54 3/10 × 57 1/10 × 43 3/10 in
138 × 145 × 110 cm
Screaming Foot, 2010
used skateboards
16 7/10 × 4 1/2 × 9 4/5 in
42.5 × 11.5 × 25 cm
Foot With Invisible Shoe 6, 2012
Used skateboards
23 1/2 × 12 × 28 in
59.7 × 30.5 × 71.1 cm
Sk8 Cross Mario
used skateboards
18 3/4 × 14 × 3/4 in
47.6 × 35.6 × 1.9 cm
It comes as no surprise that Haroshi is a skate boarder besides being a self taught wood worker. He hand selects, stacks, paints, and carves each piece of skate board. His pieces have a striped or layer effect because the skateboards themselves are comprised of fused wood sheets. My favorite part of his process is that within each 3D sculpture he places a "raw" piece of broken skate board to act as the "soul" of the work. This practice is inspired by Unkei, a 12th century Buddhist sculptor who would place a crystal within each of his sculptures of Buddha.
Okay, I just watched and read a couple of interviews with Hiroshi, I my first instincts about him were not super far from the truth (although the interview I watched was so informal, I'm not sure it wasn't a Joke). He is pretty young, Id say late twenties early thirties. He has that young at heart forever, refuses to take anyone or anything to seriously (even his art concepts ---though there is nothing silly about his execution---adult skateboarder style that we all know so well.
The conceptualizations behind his work went something like this: "Deluxe is one of the best skateboard companies in the world, why wouldn't I do something with Deluxe. Pete Ramondetta is one of the best skateboarders on the world. And If I'm going to do an arm and the middle finger of a guy it only makes sense to do it of someone whose awesome, and I even put his tattoos on the arm. Tommy Guerrero plays guitar, so I made a guitar for Tommy Guerrero." Okay, so this was said with a translator speaking after Haroshi, so I still don't know if it is a joke, but I don't think it is. We are talking about a completely unschooled, self-taught artist, so I doubt he has much experience composing artist statements :)
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