Born, Greeley Colorado 1973 | Lives and works in New York

Jacob Hashimoto simulates nature without purporting to replicate it. Based in New York and of Japanese decent, Hashimoto redefines Japanese screen painting with his assemblages of paper “kites” in undulating, interactive compositions.

Hashimoto’s artwork embodies his longtime fascination with the intersections of painting and sculpture, abstraction and landscape. Each work is comprised of hundreds of small bamboo and paper kite-like elements. These kite elements are strung together in chains, and layers of these chains are stretched taught between short dowels that project from wall-mounted brackets, creating a densely layered and fragmented tapestry of image or pattern.

The elements forming these tapestries are a solid color of paper, or a complex, collaged pattern of multicolored cut paper. While the individual components remain more or less abstract, overall, clusters of pattern, stripes, or waves of color are formed, giving the works a pictorial quality that suggests organic forms, vistas, scrolling video games, or even board games. Through this unique process Hashimoto’s works convey an ephemeral wonder, entrancing the viewer with their continuously shifting illusion of light, space, motion, and sense of flight. Hashimoto’s working method is very open-ended, allowing him to sample art-historical references, icons of the every-day, and mismatched narratives within each composition.