Lot 1027: OSCAR OIWA SATIO

OSCAR OIWA SATIO
(Born in 1965)
Beautiful World Meat Market
signed, titled, dated and inscribed 'Oscar Oiwa Satio; 2004; New York; Beautiful World Meat Market' in English (lower right & on reverse)
oil on canvas, triptych
227 x 111.5 cm. (89 1/4 x 43 3/4 in.) x 3 pieces
Painted in 2004

Fram Kitagawa Gendaikikakushitsu Publishers, Oscar Oiwa - Painting in the Age of Globalization, Tokyo, Japan, 2008, p. 133. (illustrated)

Oscar Oiwa's nomadic nature has provided countless residences with various world cities such as Sao Paulo, Japan, New York and London where in each city Oiwa is the quiet observer of crossed cultures, language and globalization. His interpretations of his astutely observed surroundings are manifested on canvases and are interjected with peripheral formal artistic studies such as opera, music and literature. Using fine brushstrokes, Oiwa approaches his canvases like a miniaturist, providing endless details for the viewer to piece together a contextual narrative. The resulting images of Oiwa are spectacularly detailed and retain an element of enchantment, as demonstrated in Secret Weapon (Lot 1028) and Beautiful World Meat Market (Lot 1027).

Commenting on the absurdity of war in this technologically advanced century, Oiwa's painting demonstrates new strategies-biochemical warfare of this day and age. In Secret Weapon, a dilapidated subbasement room of oil tanks, trucks and equipment lay unused. The central ethereal fungus which grows overwhelmingly in size suggests a fiction of our imagination. Oiwa has rendered them in a soft cream colour; spores float up into the air to create an overall quality of dreaminess and make believe. Yet in the context of war craft, the mushrooms are toxic and present themselves as an unforeseeable danger and advantageous over obvious planes and bombs. As suggested by the title, this secret weapon shows a slight overpowering of nature. These mushrooms grow with life yet signify an impeding death, a duality which Oiwa often contemplates in his works.

By employing the cow as a metaphor for the global economy, the artist chops the meats into pieces of countries to reveal the dominance of each country on the global economy in Beautiful World Meat Market. The four evident countries that have significant dominance in the global economy are presented clearly with its composition and the distinct geometric outline of the countries. Placed in a form of hierarchy of dominance, he consciously ranks America at the top while India is second tiered and Australia hangs at the bottom. Such particular placement of the country in an dark, obscure market demonstrates the artist's astute observation of the world countries' inequalities. While the luminescent Chinese sign, the title of this painting suggest that beauty and happiness run freely through all the world, this is fact is suggested fraudulent by the placement of the hanging 'meats'.