Infused with cuteness, Yoshimasa Tsuchiya’s fantastical sculptures will make you inadvertently aww. Based in Japan, Tsuchiya works primarily with wood, carving his lifelike creatures out of blocks of wood, using a chainsaw and other heavy machinery.
Then, Tsuchiya carefully places shiny crystals as eyes. The result? Cartoonish wood creatures that look like something taken out of a fairy tale; their eyes gleaming with mischief.
Tsuchiya envisions his animals “as if something is borrowing the posture of the animals and it’s suddenly appearing” in front of him. “Nobody has ever seen unicorns but I imagine the shape of them by knowing the characteristics of their horns as medicine and that they don’t get attached to, or domesticated by, humans.”
He explored various mediums in college (clay, metals, stone), before finally, getting to woodcarving. “When I carved wood for the first time, I thought, ‘this is it,’” said the artist in an interview with Beautiful Bizarre Magazine. “I felt the comfortable feeling like gnawing on fruits when I carve the wood.”
Check out his creations below.
