Lot 1004: SATOSHI FURUI

SATOSHI FURUI
(Born in 1959)
Mushroom Cloud #21 Buster Charlie; Mushroom Cloud #29 Crossroads Baker; Mushroom Cloud #30 Redwing Seminole
signed 'Satoshi Furui' in English (on reverse)
three oil on panel
30 x 30 cm. (11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in.) x 3 pieces
Painted in 2001 & 2004 (3)

Metropolitan Art Space, Lien Chien-Hsing, Taipei, Taiwan, 1997, p. 17. (illustrated)

The dropping of the atom bomb was for the majority of the world a moment better forgotten but memorialized. It was a Satoshi Furui a deeply personal experience that reshaped his perspective of the world and humanity. In a statement, Furui describes how the pre-1945 world was composed of individuals whose births, daily lives and deaths were significant to other individuals. Yet in the aftermath of 1945, Japan and particularly Furui, witnessed how masses of species could in moment, be obliterated from history. Japan created a memorial museum that showed the devastation caused by the bombing in gruesome details, which Furui remembers while an exhibition in the United States, displayed a more subdued approach to the exhibition thus showing to Furui, the wide communicational gap between these two countries.

While painting these magnificent displays of power, destruction and advancement of science, Furui contemplated and thoroughly researched the process and effects of the atom and hydrogen bomb. There are so many repercussions to technology; the bomb and even the invention of the Internet that began as a military project to allow a continuation of communication should a nuclear war surge. It was only after the cold war ended the artist notes that the Internet was made for general use and benefit. The irony of today's society to greater learns about the universe and our world is displayed in the beautiful yet saddening images of the mushroom cloud series.

Mushroom Cloud #2002 Ivy Mike (lot 1005) is the objective reality of what the testing of the first hydrogen bomb by the Americans on Nov 1st, 1952 looked like. In re-creating these scenes, Furui searches to document history yet it is difficult even for the viewer to view this merely as 'fact'. Mushroom Cloud #21 Buster Charlie, Mushroom Cloud #29 Crossroad Baker and Mushroom Cloud #30 Redwing Seminole (lot 1004) all are direct documentations of real test sites of Nevada 1951, Marshall Islands 1946 and Bogon Island 1956, respectively. The unique fungal like cloud each test produced is a documentation of different scientific components which Furui studies with great care. Rendered in a realistic yet with a soft touch, the colours of each painting feel a little acidic and a little harsh on the eyes. The billows of clouds are painted with such accuracy that indeed the viewer feels that he or she is experiencing the improbable; watching the test of an atomic or H-bomb. Unable to escape the captivating rendition of the clouds, Furui implores the viewer to not only see a painting of a cloud but to examine the moment in innovation which would forever change the face of history and science.