Armada

Studio la Citta 2013

Jacob Hashimoto mainly works on a large and public yet still extremely intimate scale with works that also become “a part of the community” as well as part of individual experience. And this latest work by him is emblematic.

At first sight it is, of course, abstract, though the usual figurative metaphors for describing it come to mind: cloudbanks, waves, billowing sails. And yet, however tiny, the individual elements are there to see and recognize. In this case they are miniscule boats. And once the characteristic beauty of Hashimoto’s work has been digested, not as an “extra” but as an inherent part of its meaning, so these other thoughts and emotions also present themselves. Here we are enveloped by these boats breasting the invisible sea around us: these are old and persistent emotions, all the more potent because here they are so airily and lightly expressed.