They have a presence that makes you feel as if they might move and start talking at any moment, like living creatures. These are works of “sculptural furniture” – sculptures that can be used – created by artist Hiroyuki Nishimura. In March 2024, he won the gold prize at the prestigious Kajima Sculpture Competition. How are these works created, with their unique form, strength and loveliness that you can’t forget once you’ve seen them?
One sunny day in early May, I visited the atelier located at the foot of a mountain in Oiso. Even though it’s called an atelier, there are no buildings with roofs or walls, just a field of lush green grass and trees stretching out beneath the open sky. There, a chain block, three pieces of equipment for suspending it, and a pile of logs are lined up. For 30 years, Nishimura-san has been making sculptures from the kind of trees that are destined to be cut down in the city or knocked down by typhoons and thrown away. When I asked him why he decided to focus on these kinds of trees and start making art, his answer was surprisingly simple.
“At the time, it was the eonomic bubble era in Japan. There were a lot of trees being cut down and thrown away due to urban development. I saw them being transported in trucks in large quantities, and I started by taking them in and then thinking about what to do with them. I didn’t think about the environment at first, I just thought it was a waste that they were being thrown away. I’ve been doing this for 30 years, so I don’t want people to think I’m just jumping on a bandwagon.”
It’s been over 30 years since he started out with the idea of not wasting anything. He owns 20 Husqvarna chain saws from Sweden, using different ones to cut logs of different sizes, and he cuts them quickly in one go so that his instincts don’t go awry. He uses the chain saw to cut out almost the entire process, and then finishes it off by smoothing the surface with a grinder. He works at a steady pace, and it takes about three hours to finish on a small stool. When splitting a large log lengthwise, it sometimes takes half a day to cut it in half because you have to cut in from both ends. And each time you cut, you have to repeat the process of hanging it from a chain block and lowering it, which takes all day. Working outdoors is a battle of physical strength.
The sculptural furniture that is created in this way is a one-of-a-kind work of art that expresses a world of unique sensibilities and aesthetics, with a form and warmth that can only be created by hand. It is highly regarded overseas, and he often collaborates with luxury brands. Recently, he decorated the windows of the newly reopened Mulberry boutique in Ginza in March 2024. Also, the dyeing artisan, Samiro Yuki, who was a close friend of Nishimura, was one of the people who was fascinated by his sculptures while he was alive. Nowadays, his work is often discussed in the context of sustainability, but for Nishimura, his artistic activities are a pursuit of beauty that is completely separate from any message to society.
Nishimura’s sense of beauty is something that is consistent not only in his artwork, but also in her lifestyle. There is an episode that illustrates this. In his late 20s, he threw away all the plastic products in his house. During the bubble era, plastic was at its peak. The trigger was a photo book called “Global Family”. It captured ordinary lives in various countries around the world, and the content was portraits of families photographed with their household goods lined up in front of their houses.
“The most tacky page was Japan. It showed mass-produced plastic products, all of which we had at home. On the other hand, the ones in India and Vietnam were all real. Seeing that, I threw away all the plastic products in my house. It wasn’t that they were bad, but for me, it was the end of an era.” His decision to get rid of plastic for the sake of being cool was also a decision that ended up being ahead of the trends of modern society.
Nurturing the next generation of artists is a contribution to society
In addition to his work as a artist, Mr. Nishimura also presides over the artist group “Zougei”. For over 20 years he worked as a lecturer at high schools and art prep schools. He felt that it was more important to build a foundation as an artist than to teach the know-how needed to pass art school entrance exams, so he set up the artist group “Zougei” with his fellow artists and established an art school.
“My motto is not to take a trend and countermeasure. Instead, I teach the importance of drawing. The character for elephant in the word ‘elephant’ is the character for ‘to mold’, and we repeat the training of drawing people and other things. If art is based on a concept, you don’t need to go to art school to do it. But we have to give dreams to people who pay a lot of money for art, which is unnecessary. People who have studied art can also draw pictures, and we need to show that the form of this sculpture is also derived from the human figure. That’s why I offer my students a place to learn that artists need to be able to draw lines properly. It’s my own way of contributing to society.”
Pursuing lines that only humans can draw
While teaching his students, he continues to practice drawing and sketching people on a daily basis. For Mr. Nishimura, the act of drawing and shaping lines is a necessary process as a preliminary step to making a sketch for a sculpture.
“If you make a mistake when doing a quick sketch of a person, it’s easy to spot. For example, if it’s an industrial product made from a drawing, you can draw it to a certain extent even if you don’t have a sense of drawing, and if you want to make it symmetrical, you can use a compass. But that’s not interesting. You should draw something that can only be drawn by a human hand. When you think about it like that, a person is the ultimate subject, and if the position of the eyes is slightly off, it makes the face look strange, and if the balance is slightly off, it makes you feel uncomfortable. So when I draw people, it’s obvious at a glance how poor my drawing is.
Even in sculpture, there are standards for what you like or dislike about lines, and I think that drawing people is necessary in order to understand this. Parabolas, like the ones taught at art universities, are beautiful no matter who draws them, and we can understand their beauty, but they’re not lines that we would deliberately draw. You’re not using your senses. That’s why I tell them not to rely on parabolas. Then you ask if my work is any good, and I say it’s crap. But I’ll keep trying until I die.”
A work that wrestles with trees and nature, including the environment
When carving wood, he prepares a drawing based on the design, but when he actually starts carving, he is often disturbed by large knots or holes from insects, or the wood is twisted or warped in ways that are characteristic of natural materials, so it doesn’t always go according to the drawing. On the contrary, it becomes unexpectedly interesting when you try to avoid these problems while carving. According to him, his poor drawings are helped by the strength of the trees and the materials, and they actually improve.
At the same time, his studio, which is left in its natural state, also has a big influence on his work. It is a harsh environment where you have to accept the strong winds and the hot or cold sunshine. No matter how much you’re in a hurry, if the weather is bad you can’t work. It’s not just a battle with the wood, but also a battle with nature. For Mr. Nishimura, this environment is important, and his works are a reflection of this. As he says, “My works are like a house”, the sculpture furniture that exists under the open sky is like a house standing in the forest, and you can’t help but agree with the necessity of the atelier and the sculpture furniture.
I, as a person, am at my most beautiful when people are saying whether they like me or not.
Mr. Nishimura is now 63 years old (at the time of the interview). While many artists of his generation have become art college professors or presidents, he continues to work hard and take on new challenges. His atelier is a magnet for students from prep schools and former students who come to help out. He is a mentor, a senior, and a friend. He says he’s a kid for his age, and in a way that may be true. He humbly refers to himself as still developing, and his willingness to be criticized may be what makes him think that way.
“If I say something hateful, everyone likes the so-called average. We artists don’t create things with the average in mind, and art is something that people either like or dislike, so if everyone starts to praise my work, it’s all over. I think that the time when people are saying whether they like my work or not is the time when my work and I as a person are at their best.”
All the works that are carved out by the artist Hiroyuki Nishimura are like a mirror reflecting his way of life, a reflection of himself, and they seem like self-portraits.
artist
HIROYUKI NISHIMURA
Born in Osaka in 1960.After graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts, he worked as a high school and cram school teacher before founding Zougei Co. He has won prizes at numerous exhibitions, including the Kajima Sculpture Competition. He continues to work as a teacher while also working energetically on his own art. In 2024, he won the gold prize at the 18th Kajima Sculpture Competition.