Twisted Sex And Naked Bodies, Yoshifumi Hayashi

Yoshifumi Hayashi

Yoshifumi Hayashi is an enigmatic artist who produces imagery that is both erotic, challenging and somewhat disturbing at times.

Yoshifumi Hayashi was born in the Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan in 1948. He studied philosophy at the University of Chuo but left before the end of his course. Philosophy’s loss is art’s gain as his work is very unusual. His work has been exhibited in Paris, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Rome. He has lived in Paris Since 1974.

Each one of Hayashi’s images features the human body, usually female and often more than one naked form, except that these forms are dragged from what appears to be dark fantasies, or at least abstractions. With a clinical precision he draws the anatomy of the human body, sometimes as we see it but often dismantled, pile of legs, a tower of bulging breasts even bodies bloodlessly impaled on wooden poles.

Then there are the dissections. Not depictions of actual anatomical dismemberment or illustrations from a text medical book but sensual forms sliced open at the point of copulation in a way that is compelling and shocking.

The style of Yoshifumi Hayashi’s work is reminiscent of Maurits Escher in its detail, accuracy and contortions of the real world. If you’re familiar with Salvador Dahli you’ll recognise stylistic elements from him too and throughout Yoshifumi Hayashi’s work you will be compelled to recognise the similarities between him and H R Giger.

Deviant sexuality, tortured mind or visionary, Yoshifumi Hayashi may be all three.

We would love to be able to direct you to a website of this artist’s work but sadly we cannot find one. It would appear that his Web presence is almost non existent, hence the sketchy nature of the biog above. If you’d like to see more of his work Google him and check out the few sites that carry his images. You may or may not like what you see but it will certainly make you think.