Ning-Hui Chung

Yoshitoshi Kanemaki is a Japanese sculptor known for surreal wooden figures with multiple faces. Using the traditional ichiboku-zukuri technique, he carves from a single block of hinoki wood, merging realism and surrealism to explore fragmented identity, emotion, and the fluidity of being.

TAYUTA Capris depicts a young girl whose head multiplies into shifting faces, symbolizing emotional fluctuation and fragmented identity. “Tayuta” means to sway—signifying psychological instability and temporal drift. The warmth of carved wood contrasts with unease, creating motion within stillness.

Kanemaki’s art embodies “motion within stillness,” turning sculpture into a psychological organism. His material framework—hinoki wood carved using ichiboku-zukuri—captures the continuity of time and consciousness within a single block. The organic fibers and painted layers of the wood evoke both tactile realism and emotional resonance, aligning with Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s embodied perception, where the body mediates experience between material and mind.

His methodology merges traditional craftsmanship with contemporary philosophy. Through repetition, division, and symmetry, Kanemaki visualizes multiplicity of self, echoing Gilles Deleuze’s theory of difference and repetition—difference as an active force of becoming. By manipulating the temporal nature of carving, he transforms static material into a vibration of consciousness.

In my own miniature sculpture practice, Kanemaki inspires me to infuse material and form with psychological vitality. He shows that stillness can hold movement—that sculpture can embody emotion without literal motion. I aim to translate this into texture, rhythm, and spatial layering, creating subtle pulsations of time and feeling—where the viewer senses the trembling boundary between self, memory, and transformation.

#surreal sculpture #psychological portrait #multiplicity of self #time and motion # inner tension

Image credit & website:

https://www.behance.net/gallery/44976649/-TAYUTACapris

https://www.instagram.com/kanemaki_yoshitoshi/

Written on: 31 August 2025