Untitled

Wilhelm Sasnal
Untitled
2016
Oil on canvas
55.9 x 70 cm

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)