Untitled

Wilhelm Sasnal
Untitled
2016
55.0 x 70.0 cm
oil on canvas

Wilhelm Sasnal (b.1972) is an artist who mainly adopts paintings, and occasionally photography and videography. Sasnal’s motifs are diverse, from pictures on mass media such as televisions, internet and advertisements; pictures that surround us such as historical archives; and snapshots capturing his private life. Yet, when we look through Sasnal’s works, it is not a sense of being exposed to an enormous, scattered and uncoordinated image that emerges, but rather a feeling of reading a single story Sasnal has weaved. Through his creation, it is as though Sasnal is attempting to have a different take on our setting where images of contemporary society are saturated: in his words “There is always a story behind the visual elements”.

This work has the perspective of a person straddling a bicycle looking at their own shadow, the front wheel, and a wire connected to the brakes. Bicycles are a motif that occasionally appears in Sasnal’s work, and as the artist rides a mountain bike as a hobby, we can assume that this is a scene captured from his daily life. This work has a mixture of concreteness and abstraction. This is a feature that can be seen throughout Sasnal’s work, such as screen composition, colour, and how to draw curves.

(Commentary: Shin Sumimoto / Translation: Emma Tsuji Harrison)