Sota Sakuma Japonsko, b. 1977

The impressiveness of Sota Sakuma's works lies in the combination of poetic art with elaborate details and perfect handwork. Sota Sakuma's paintings blur the distinction between the real and the ideal, the material and the symbolic. The viewer co-experiences, listens, reads between the lines and uncovers the signs and symbols that the artist's works are full of.

Sota Sakuma
(*1977 Aichi Prefecture, Japan), is a creator of puppets and masks, and even as a painter he views the world in a fairy-tale-like, holy and devilish way, combining the mysticism of the humorous and the impenetrable. He first became deeply acquainted with the Czech puppet during his textile design studies at the University of Tokyo (1996-2000) in a local gallery. After this chance encounter, he decided to visit Prague. The world of puppet theatre drew him in so much that he decided to study at the Department of Scenography of Alternative and Puppet Theatre at Prague's DAMU under the guidance of scenographer and teacher Petr Matásek. Since 2000 Sota Sakuma has been living and working in Prague. His work is influenced by the tenderness of Jiří Trnka and the surrealism of Jan Švankmajer. The main themes of his work are: the world of fantasy, dreams, myths, symbols, but above all the relationship to nature and life itself.