2018 BEAUTIFUL BIZARRE MAGAZINE ART PRIZE
2nd Prize
Kazuhiro Hori
for
“Relief” [Acrylic and oil on canvas, 194 × 162cm]
Japanese Junior High and High School Girls – recognizable by their school uniform “seifuku” surround themselves with fashion, music, cute things, and sweet confections. They live in a dazzling “privileged time”, they smile and enjoy time with their friends. But at the same time, their minds are also filled with anxiety, and their hearts are weighed down by dark thoughts and feelings. They study the things they might never find useful in the future, they want to belong in a clique, they don’t want to be outcasts, and they want to maintain their relationships with their peers. They are anxious about the things that await them in the future when they finally enter “the real world”. They feel uncertain, and they sense a vague kind of anxiety about their future. That is the bitter and sweet circumstances of their lives. As they grow, their sweet confections and fluffy teddy bears are going to be further and further away from their lives.
Kazuhiro Hori was born in Japan in 1969. He graduated from Kanazawa College of Art. Having made painting his main discipline, he portrays a bitter sweet vision of adolescents in disconcerting environments filled with soft toys and sweets.