This lot is offered by Christie Manson & Woods Ltd
Christie Manson & Woods Ltd
8 King Street, St. James's, London, SW1Y 6QT, United Kingdom
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Lot Essay
Part of a generation of young Japanese photographers, Yumiko Utsu’s images present the fantastical and uncanny. Utsu uses food graphically and gratuitously to consider its aesthetic properties; her work is inspired by the imaginary worlds of Hieronymus Bosch, Salvador Dali, and the Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer’s, whose surreal animations are particularly humorous and lusciously multisensorial. In a nod to these surrealist forbearers, Octopus Portrait, 2009, is similarly textured and vaguely unsettling. The artist has taken what appears to be a 19th-century portrait of a woman posed jauntily within a sumptuous interior of velvet and brocade, and replaced her face with a fleshy octopus. Utsu’s creature is bent on domination, its tentacles curl confidently and sinisterly outwards, forming phantom eyes on the woman’s face, as it slowly engulfs its prey. Post Lot Text This lot will be subject to VAT of 20% on both the hammer price and buyer’s premium. Please see Conditions of Sale for further information.
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Condition report
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The condition of lots can vary widely and the nature of the lots sold means that they are unlikely to be in a perfect condition. Lots are sold in the condition they are in at the time of sale.
Not examined out of frame. It is our view that work appears to be in generally good condition.
Catalogue illustration: fairly accurate.
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