Izumi Kato: Parasitic Plastic Models

'Parasitic Plastic Models' combines Izumi Kato's recent works in wood, paint and textile with moulded plastic. The artist credits this series of playful sculptures to his experimentation with plastic model kits in his studio during the Covid-19 pandemic. Kato began to incorporate small vintage models of animals and insects with his wooden sculptures, before developing this relationship between natural and fabricated materials with plastic imitations of natural stone, wood-mounted acrylic figurines and large scale sculptures topped with tiny plastic models. Koichi Watari, CEO of Watarium, questions whether the figures that populate the works are 'spirits, deities, ancient peoples, or perhaps something from the future?' In their plastic forms these beings are both playfully childlike and eerily futuristic. Watari continues, 'I suspect that [Kato] has a kind of nostalgia for them from boyhood. Kato continues to take a free hand to his creations, casually incorporating the milieu of his youth and a subliminal appreciation of nature.'