Larger Than Life: The Sculptures of Kazu Hiro
This article first appeared in Hi-Fructose issue 35, which is sold out.
When Copro Gallery showed Kazu Hiro’s latest sculptures at the annual LA Art Show this past January, a commotion ensued. Eager patrons jammed the aisles of the Los Angeles Convention Center and—much to the annoyance of neighboring exhibitors—flooded into Copro’s booth to get a better look at Hiro’s uncanny doubles of Andy Warhol and Salvador Dalí. The pieces caused so much chaos that they were moved to a special section in the front of the fair, and celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Seth Green were among the legions of fans who snapped selfies with them that weekend.
“Kazu’s work had fifty people around it at all times, taking photos and viewing it, for the duration of the event. It was even featured on the local news,” Copro Gallery director Gary Pressman recalled in an email. “Everywhere we have brought his work, it attracts a huge crowd and never fails to change the dynamics of whatever we are showing.”
While words like “bust” or “monument” come to mind to describe Hiro’s sculptures, the artist simply refers to them as “portraits.” Not a particularly evocative term, but a straightforward one that suits his no-frills approach to his subject matter. His portraits are gigantic and commanding—almost garish because of their scale. At several times the size of a human head, they implore viewers to come closer to examine their pores and follicles painstakingly rendered with silicone, pigment, and human hair. Hiro typically chooses mythologized pop culture icons as subjects, and viewers gather in hoards for the opportunity to examine their heroes as close to in-the-flesh as they can get.
With the amount of buzz surrounding Hiro’s work, one would be surprised to learn that he has only been a full-time artist for the past three years. In 2012, he left his successful career as a special effects makeup artist with credits in major films such as Planet of the Apes, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Men in Black. His fine art portfolio, which consists of just six completed sculptures, is quite small compared to the high-volume output we’re used to seeing from contemporary artists in our Rolodex of art blogs and social media feeds. Hiro’s slow, deliberate process defies the demands of the online media cycle, but rather than causing him to fall off his fans’ radar, it only adds to his mystique.
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. My subjects, too, had those problems…”
While Hiro had always been creative, he never considered becoming a fine artist until he was in his late thirties. While attending high school in Kyoto, he explored various design careers before he discovered special effects makeup. Curious about the field, he wrote a letter to legendary makeup artist Dick Smith asking for advice (he found Smith’s P.O. box in an ad for a makeup kit in the magazine Fangoria). When Smith, whose credits include makeup for The Godfather and Taxi Driver, came to Japan for a project, he invited Hiro to work with him on set and eventually encouraged him to relocate to L.A. to pursue his career.
Hiro’s move to L.A. proved to be fruitful. But after nearly two decades of working on Hollywood sets, he found himself disgruntled with the pressure of executing someone else’s creative vision without the freedom to express his own. He and Smith had stayed in touch regularly up until Smith’s passing in 2014, and Hiro said that Smith’s frustration with himself in his old age made him realize that he no longer wanted to follow his mentor’s path.
“Dick Smith was a really accomplished artist and worked on many great films. But at the same time, he had lots of regret in his life,” Tsuji reflected. “Even though on the surface he seemed like the happiest person on earth, he had a lot of discontent in his mind. I realized I would be the same way, and I didn’t want to retire as a makeup artist.”
Smith’s eightieth birthday in 2002 was a turning point for Hiro. As a surprise for his mentor, the artist applied his skills from his movie work to his first hyperrealist sculpture, a large-scale portrait of Smith. Hiro recalls the wonderment of Smith’s friends and family when he unveiled the work. “People who knew Dick at the time were really touched by it and even cried when they looked at it,” Tsuji said. “So I felt that this is something I really want to keep doing.” A photo of Smith standing next to the portrait on Hiro’s website reveals how spot-on the resemblance truly is (see images below-Ed).
Kazu Hiro left the film industry for good after doing Joseph Gordon Levitt’s makeup for the 2012 film Looper. Around that time, celebrated artist Paul McCarthy invited him to oversee a series of silicone sculptures as well as his controversial series of Disney-inspired works, White Snow. His collaboration with McCarthy was an affirmation of Hiro’s penchant for hyperrealism, and he committed himself to his personal art practice shortly thereafter.
Suddenly, you notice how beautiful it is and every problem disappears because it’s a kind of switch that makes you focus on this one thing…”
Kazu Hiro is selective about whom he chooses to portray in his work and seeks out subjects with whom he has an emotional connection. “I realized that everyone I wanted to do a portrait of had a tormented childhood or life, but broke through that and made something amazing,” he said. He obsessively studies his subjects’ biographies and pores over every available photo, article, and documentary. The final work isn’t based on a single moment, but instead on a general impression Hiro gets from his subject’s story. He strives to capture a face in the moment before it contorts into joy, sorrow, or rage to hint at his subject’s complex inner life. His portraits explore the strength and vulnerability that coexist within great leaders and great artists.
In investigating his subjects’ pain, Hiro attempts to exorcise some of his own anxieties. His art has become his personal therapy. “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. My subjects, too, had those problems,” he mused. “As I create the portrait, I heal myself and I try to heal the person who I’m making, too.”
He said that when his viewers become entranced by one of his works, their anxieties seem to disappear, as well. If the fanfare at the LA Art Show was any indication, multiple portraits displayed together make a striking impression. Over the phone, while working on his next piece in his Burbank studio, Tsuji said his dream is to have an exhibition with a room full of them. “You know when you see something beautiful, the mind changes,” Hiro theorized. “Suddenly, you notice how beautiful it is and every problem disappears because it’s a kind of switch that makes you focus on this one thing… That’s part of my goal, switching people’s consciousnesses. And in that sense, my work is healing for everybody, I think.”*
Kazu Hiro exhibits his work frequently with Copro Gallery in Santa Monica, CA.
This article originally appeared in hi-fructose Issue 35, which is sold out. Subscribe and get our latest issue here!
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