1963 Gallery presents Liquid, a new body of work by Rafael Hayashi (b.1985, São Paulo).

Descendant of Japanese and Portuguese immigrants, Hayashi develops his work in São Paulo, Brazil, where he leans in the social disparities and structural problems of the accelerated and disordered expansion to create. After his recent sold-out solo show in Brazil, Hayashi brings to London his latest works, a series of paintings that reflect the conflicts experienced by the individual living in contemporary society, exploring the struggles and the strength needed to survive in this giant metropolitan landscape.

Helped by his unconventional and almost accidental technique, Hayashi’s large-scale pieces hold colossal shapes and form arising from great masses of paint. Ink is added and paint is removed or shaped by his hand, creating volume, tone and texture. The anthropomorphic figures resulting from this process remain in a frozen and violent harmony, holding all tension in an instant where Hayashi’s energy outbreaks.

During the creation of this works the artist discovered how his canvases reflect the fluidity of human relationships and the brief, superficial sensations of today humans exposed in Zygmunt Bauman’s work. As an analogy of life, the gigantic figures are nothing but “Liquids” in a Liquid Modernity but also liquid as a river stream that flows slow and continues his path turning bulky and ferocious. Hayashi’s life stream is not different from this river and his work evolves parallel to it, gaining body and speed, liquidity and plasticity.

Cai Quo Quiang, Francis Bacon, Yang Shaobin or Oswaldo Guayasamín are usually named as Hayashi’s influences, but is São Paulo and the rare lifestyle of this city what ultimately shapes the soul behind his work. The tribal fights of the Brazilian Indians “Huka Huka” and other similar rituals like the Indian “Kushti”, considered sacred for centuries, helped Hayashi shape these colossi that have become a way of exuding the tension accumulated in the biggest city of the American Continent.