Masanori Handa

2008-2009 Visual Arts Protégé

View Gallery of Visual Arts images

Published in 2008

“Art for me is a means of survival,” says Masanori Handa, 28, one of Japan's fastest-rising contemporary artists. Handa's creativity was awakened at age 19 when he travelled to India and “felt the universe in every object”.

Upon obtaining his B.A. in design from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music in 2003, Handa began executing large-scale projects that connect apparently far-fetched things in a dynamic way. In 2005, his debut solo exhibition, White Beach-Green Pine/Nuclear Plant-Gourds, at Tokyo's Kodama Gallery, consisted of a gourd-shaped bathtub placed underneath a canopy of gourd vines. The steam from the bath, enhanced by people bathing, caused the vines to wither. A year later, he created This is Not a Swing, 14 triangular, bamboo swing-like structures that have become landmarks at rural sites. Both demonstrate the effects of human intervention on things. “My work is about transformation and not about the object itself,” Handa says.