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Clockwork Angels: The Art of Masaaki Sasamoto
The glowing paintings of Masaaki Sasamoto are drenched with gold and a mellow, old-world radiance. Butterflies, fairies and other mythical creatures, girl-automatons with exposed machinery, flowers, winged seraphic beings, are common motifs in his work. The mildly serene and rather bland, flat smiles of his figures seem to have a quality that is half-deity, half-doll. Sasamoto combines traditional Japanese techniques with modern aesthetics in a unique, luminous, memorable style that evokes antiquity, a fantastical air, an atmosphere slightly surreal and wondrously airy yet rich.