
2025
JURY PRIZE
Jury Prize
Dog on a Box
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Year:
2025
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Size:
297×210mm
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Material/Technique:
Acrylic paint on illustration board
Wancha began drawing when she was studying for the high school entrance exam. As she was exploring different materials, she became particularly fascinated by the idea of cutting up magazines and pasting them with acrylic paint to create collages. Since developing a disability, she has begun to see glowing figures of dogs, cats, and people at night. Once, after her dog had undergone surgery, she saw a figure similar to her previous dog watching over her beloved companion. She felt no fear or anxiety but rather a sense of reassurance, and a clear realization that all things, alive or dead, have a warmth. This understanding has been the driving inspiration for Wancha’s creative journey. As colors and shapes shift, the new forms born as a result conjure not only the presence of tangible beings but also the warmth of the invisible. It is this outcome to which she channels her warm prayer for the losses we all experience.

Katsuhiko Hibino
In my daily life, there are scenes that just stick with me even though I don’t intend for them to do so. They happen not as a single occasion but as a result of the combination of two or more events, like “the dead worm I found after looking at cherry blossoms” or “unbeknownst even to myself, my bike glides past the person I had been watching from behind", and the artwork encapsulates such phenomenon. When I was introduced to this piece of art, I was overcome by a strange impression—the illusion that two isolated, unrelated events I experienced were coexisting. I can’t help but wonder how it is even possible to draw something like this, although I know that if you start thinking of such questions, a painting like this would never come to life. Still … art is indeed inexplicable as it can certainly uncover perceptions you never realized you had.
Wancha
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Nationality:
Japan
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