In our current issue, we highlight Contemporary hyperrealist sculptor, Kazuhiro Tsuji, including his larger than life piece titled “Portrait of Abraham Lincoln”. Starting on Tuesday, June 2nd, DAX Gallery in Costa Mesa, CA will showcase the piece for public viewing. In anticipation of the event, DAX has offered us an exclusive look behind the scenes of Tsuji’s process and preparation. Working mainly out of Burbank, CA, Tsuji’s studio is now dedicated to the production of modeling and casting of his realistic sculptures. Perhaps a better description of his work is “monumental,” as his Lincoln towers twice the scale of the famously tall American President. He is made of resin, platinum silicone, and other materials, using the same technique Tsuji learned as a self-taught special effects makeup artist since 25 years ago. The most important stage of his process however is a therapeutic one. Tsuji shares, “I had a difficult childhood and always had pain in my heart and in my mind, and was always trying to figure out what was going on and how to heal it… As I create the portrait, I heal myself and I try to heal the person who I’m making, too.”
Check out more of Kazuhiro Tsuji’s larger than life portraits in HF Vol. 35.
In 
Sicily, Italy based artist 
Cuban artist Alan Manuel Gonzalez once found it inconceivable to be showing his art outside of Cuba. He has described his paintings as the result of the inescapable circumstance of being created there. Today, censorship in Cuba is the most intense in the western hemisphere. Gonzalez relies on the use of metaphor and surrealism to express both his love for his country and disdain for its problems.