Born in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan in 1983, Japanese artist Satoru Koizumi rose to prominence shortly after graduating from Okinawa Prefectural University’s Sculpture department in 2009. Koizumi’s work radiates an alluring charm where he reimagines the people of Japan’s hyper-civilised society as personified animal caricatures bearing the faces of innocent children.
In different animal-costumed guises, Satoru Koizumi’s wood carvings depict a solitary child wearing an animal suit who stares into the ether. With an unnerving vacant expression, these children in their brightly painted costumes disrupt any preconceptions of blissful naivety with a lonely, touching disenchantment and recognition that one cannot embrace their wild nature and truly live in the moment without restraint. Koizumi’s figures profoundly capture this paradox with a simple gaze, challenging the viewer with a breath of harsh wisdom — how our playful, wilder instincts are suppressed as modern culture advances, and that one must abandon their wild nature to live in contemporary society.
