Yusuke Hanai 'Cooperation' Sculpture Application Ending Soon

Artist: Yusuke Hanai
Title: Cooperation
Medium: Bronze Sculpture
Size: 15.9 x 30 x 15.9 cm
Edition: 18
Prices: $12,000

  

Yusuke Hanai is a Japanese artist born in Kanagawa in 1978 whose friendly figures and wavy landscapes channel 1960s California surf culture. At seventeen he discovered the psychedelic concert posters of Rick Griffin and felt an instant pull toward bold outlines, sun baked palettes and storytelling line work. That passion led him to San Francisco in 2003 to study illustration at the Academy of Art, where nights spent sketching buskers and oceanfront drifters shaped his compassionate cast of characters.

Hanai returned to Japan with a signature style that mixes ukiyo e simplicity with skateboard graphics. His recurring everyman, a round nosed wanderer with floppy hair, appears in wood panel paintings, large wall murals and limited silkscreens, often shown sitting quietly with coffee, casting a fishing line into impossible waves, or simply gazing at wide open skies. Flat color blocks and rhythmic contour lines give the scenes a mellow pulse, while subtle shadows hint at inner solitude, balancing cheerfulness with contemplation.

Exhibitions in Tokyo, New York, London and São Paulo have carried his vision far beyond coastal Japan, and collaborations with Uniqlo, Greenroom Festival and Vans have placed his art on shirts, sneakers and hotel walls, proving that handmade warmth can thrive in commercial contexts. Whether he is carving a small wooden fish, printing a three meter woodcut, or painting a live mural while surfers wait for waves, Hanai invites viewers to slow down, breathe salty air and remember that quiet moments hold their own quiet power.