Haroshi valuation
Makes sculpture from stacked and carved layers of broken skateboard decks.
Haroshi is a Japanese artist, born in Tokyo in 1978 and a skateboarder since childhood.
What a work by Haroshi is worth
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Bio
Haroshi is a Japanese artist, born in Tokyo in 1978 and a skateboarder since childhood. His sculptures are built from used skateboard decks, laminated in layers like a block of plywood and then carved, so that the coloured stripes of the decks' surfaces run through the finished form. Each sculpture is said to hold a hidden fragment of broken skateboard at its core, a nod to the Japanese tradition of placing a soul inside a Buddhist figure.
Unique sculptures lead, from small figures to large installations, with editioned sculpture and prints alongside. For unique works the artist's or the gallery's documentation is essential, because the material and the technique are distinctive but not impossible to imitate. Condition covers the laminated joints, the carved surface and any splitting along the layers, and since wood moves with humidity, how a piece has been stored matters.
Skate shops and Be@rbrick
Haroshi gets his decks from skater friends and the skate shops he knows, and works from a studio on the outskirts of Tokyo. The idea came to him while looking at a stack of used decks in his own room. Besides sculpture he paints and works as a designer.
He has also made Be@rbrick figures with MediCom and Karimoku Furniture. Those are produced in numbers and belong to the collectable toy and design market, so they are valued separately from a unique carved sculpture.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
