Gallery: These Haunting Sculptures Are Made From Thousands of Hot Glue Sticks
Picasa01onishi-14
For another project in the series Onishi suspended tree branches from the ceiling of a gallery and coated them with strands of adhesive and urea crystals. *Photo: Takuya Oshima*
Picasa02onishi-11
The result is a surreal, inverted winter landscape, frozen in time. *Photo: Takuya Oshima*
Picasa03onishi-13
*Photo: Takuya Oshima*
Picasa04onishi-12
*Photo: Takuya Oshima*
05onishi-01
Each project starts the same way. Onishi enters a room and constructs a grid of wires that serve as a scaffold for his hot glue stalactites. Like a virtuoso cowboy, he stands atop a ladder with a glue gun in each hand and fires salvos of synthetic resin that give form to the empty space. *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
06onishi-10
The process embraces randomness and Onishi admits that the idea for the unconventional method struck him in an equally unexpected way. "I worked in a huge studio with a sleeping space," he says "One day I found a long string of glue between my working area and bed." *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
07onishi-08
*Vertical Emptiness* is the name of his latest series and the installations represents a subtle, but important shift in his work. "Every time I start a project the space inspires my work," says Onishi. "I've made quite a lot of installations with black glue and hanging plastic sheets so I wanted to change how I went about filling the empty space and chose materials that I can't control." *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
08onishi-07
A recent installation, constructed in a sake cellar, embodies this evolution. Onishi replaced his grid with thick organic stings of glue that droop between contact points in the ceiling. *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
09onishi-02
While his previous projects seemed to float ephemerally, *Vertical Emptiness* is decidedly architectural, with columns and spans that could be seen as a Gaudí-esqe castle or spider-filled jungle. *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
10onishi-09
Japanese artist Yasuaki Onishi creates stunning sculptures using humble hot glue guns. *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
