Alongside Jeff Soto’s “Nightgardens” (covered here), Sashie Masakatsu made his debut solo exhibition at KP Projects/MKG in Los Angeles last weekend with “Blind Box.” We featured Masakatsu’s disaster striken world in HF Vol. 28, where there is no sign of life except for his strange, hovering orbs. As his title suggests, whatever propels them remains a mystery, but their exteriors have evolved to incorporate newly decorative motifs.
Sashie Masakatsu, with his artwork on the opening night of “Blind Box.”
The spheres that appear here are site specific, in the sense that they were in part inspired by the box-like layout of the gallery space. Masakatsu’s approach to the overall exhibition is slightly different than previous shows; for example, his drawings on display represent a relatively new process for the artist who rarely keeps a sketchbook. Newer elements, such as the intricate Japanese kimono patterns in his piece “Wrapped Reality,” are first worked out in these sketches before he begins the oil painting. They offer the artist an opportunity to execute his ideas more precisely, as viewers receive extra insight into his perplexing subjects. Although they appear alienesque, Masakatsu considers there to be a close connection between his spheres and the environment below them. “I try to reconstruct familiar forms, a sense of beauty, everyday life, and landscapes from the past as well as the future. Shaping these compositions with the flow of time to reconstruct them as modern art attempting to embody globalism as well as universality,” he says.
“Blind Box” by Sashie Masakatsu is now on view at KP Projects/MKG through July 25th.
Ohio-born oil painter 
Australian artist 
Justin Fitzpatrick’s oil paintings blend influences from Art Nouveau, illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages, anatomical drawings, and elsewhere. The actual subjects in the works likewise move through time, from using the construction workers as visual motif to creatures of the natural world rendered with Victorian flavor.