Why Apple?

In Western tradition, the apple tree is a symbol of wisdom. Masaaki Sato also prizes the apple as representing the basic form of all fruits. In New York, the Big Apple, where he has lived fifty-two year, he has produced Apple paintings and sculptures. Of these, the Apple sculptures descend from the large cubes he made with plastic cups in London. Sato calls these sculptures with conical holes Big Apples.

Masaaki Sato (Japanese 1941 - )

The Big Apple No.45 2007-08 Stainless steel

Permanent collection

Art Forest of the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art,

Japan

For Masaaki Sato, the holes in his works initially represented urban unease and anxiety, as they did in his Subway series. Their meaning gradually evolved, however, until the holes came to mean the multiplicity of human possibilities. The stainless Big Apple is the ultimate representation of this.

(left) Subway No.9 1975, Acrylic on canvas

Private collection

TOKIKO FINE ART International LLC carries important prints of Masaaki Sato and cooperate with his Big Apple Project. Contact : art@tokikofineart.com.

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