Skateboard and art hardly mix. In fact, sports in general don’t quite relate to art in the slightest bit. However, that does not stop Tokyo-based self-taught Japanese artist Haroshi from combining his love for skateboard, as a youth up till today, with art. The highlight of Haroshi’s works is the exclusive use of broken skateboard decks, glued together and carved, chiseled and shaped to create beautiful, three dimensional wooden sculptures. The result is what you see here; sculptures that are so majestic and feels so naturally beautiful that you hardly think that the material used were once skateboards. The multicolored appearance is inherent in all skateboard decks, which serve as Haroshi’s “palette, creating mosaic-like patterns that do not require paint or pigment.”
And these sculptures are the work of a person who have no formal art training, which pretty much speaks of the talent Haroshi has and also a show of his determined perseverance and DIY ethos inherited from skate culture. The sculptures you see here are Haroshi’s new series of repurposed skate deck sculptures, which you can admire at Haroshi’s third solo exhibition, entitled “Still Pushing Despite The Odds”, currently running at Jonathan LeVine Gallery. Keep going for a few more look at Haroshi’s latest skate deck sculptures, or hit up his official website to check out more of his works. And the exhibition, btw, ends March 21, 2015. So if you happen to be in and around New York during this time, you may want to catch them in person.
