Yoshitoshi Kanemaki is no stranger to human emotions, imbuing his playful sculptures with not one but several expressions all at once. The Tokyo-based artist is known for his “glitched” sculptures carved from single pieces of timber, and in his ongoing current series Prism, he continues to explore the nature of distortion, reflection, and self-consciousness.

Insight Prism, the artist’s solo exhibition opening at FUMA Contemporary this month, combines two concepts the artist dovetails in his chiseled-wood compositions.

a wooden sculpture by Yoshitoshi Kanemaki of a seated female figure with prismatic or fragmented features“Insight Prism,” paint on Japanese nutmeg and katsura, 170 x 72 x 67 centimeters

“The word ‘insight’ carries the meaning of seeing into the essence of things with clarity, while ‘prism’ metaphorically refers to elucidating what is complex,” Kanemaki says. Through a fragmented triangular motif, he highlights warped features that refract, separate, and reassemble—much like the ever-evolving nature of human consciousness and social interactions.

Insight Prism marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in two years, presenting the largest sculpture he’s yet created in the Prism series—the namesake of the show. Kanemaki delves into the multiple roles we all play in our daily lives, switching between different versions of ourselves to contend with different situations or environments. He says:

While such shifts can be seen as a necessary social manner to keep life running smoothly, there are times when we lose the vision of our “true self.”… The idea for my new sculptures began with the question: What might the form of searching for one’s “true self” look like?

Insight Prism opens on September 12 and continues through September 27 in Tokyo. Find more on the artist’s Instagram.

a wooden sculpture by Yoshitoshi Kanemaki of a female figure with a bright pink skirt and a denim jacket, with multiple faces and expressions“Breathing Caprice A,” paint on Torreya, 135 x 75 x 55 centimeters

a wooden sculpture by Yoshitoshi Kanemaki of a seated female figure with prismatic or fragmented featuresDetail of “Insight Prism”

a wooden sculpture by Yoshitoshi Kanemaki of a female figure wearing an orange sweater and skirt, with prismatic or fragmented features“Reflection Prism,” paint on Torreya, 170 x 53 x 51 centimeters

a detail of a wooden sculpture by Yoshitoshi Kanemaki of a female figure wearing an orange sweater and skirt, with prismatic or fragmented featuresDetail of “Reflection Prism”

a wooden sculpture by Yoshitoshi Kanemaki of a female figure with bright pink shorts and a jacket, with multiple faces and expressions“Ulala Caprice 3rd,” paint on Japanese nutmeg and camphor wood, 100 x 34 x 34 centimeters

a detail of a wooden sculpture by Yoshitoshi Kanemaki of a female figure with bright pink shorts and a jacket, with multiple faces and expressionsDetail of “Ulala Caprice 3rd”

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