Gallery: These Haunting Sculptures Are Made From Thousands of Hot Glue Sticks

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    For another project in the series Onishi suspended tree branches from the ceiling of a gallery and coated them with strands of adhesive and urea crystals. *Photo: Takuya Oshima*
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    The result is a surreal, inverted winter landscape, frozen in time. *Photo: Takuya Oshima*
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    *Photo: Takuya Oshima*
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    *Photo: Takuya Oshima*
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    Each project starts the same way. Onishi enters a room and constructs a grid of wires that serve as a scaffold for his hot glue stalactites. Like a virtuoso cowboy, he stands atop a ladder with a glue gun in each hand and fires salvos of synthetic resin that give form to the empty space. *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
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    The process embraces randomness and Onishi admits that the idea for the unconventional method struck him in an equally unexpected way. "I worked in a huge studio with a sleeping space," he says "One day I found a long string of glue between my working area and bed." *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
  • Vertical Emptiness is the name of his latest series and the installations represents a subtle but important shift in his...
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    *Vertical Emptiness* is the name of his latest series and the installations represents a subtle, but important shift in his work. "Every time I start a project the space inspires my work," says Onishi. "I've made quite a lot of installations with black glue and hanging plastic sheets so I wanted to change how I went about filling the empty space and chose materials that I can't control." *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
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    A recent installation, constructed in a sake cellar, embodies this evolution. Onishi replaced his grid with thick organic stings of glue that droop between contact points in the ceiling. *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
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    While his previous projects seemed to float ephemerally, *Vertical Emptiness* is decidedly architectural, with columns and spans that could be seen as a Gaudí-esqe castle or spider-filled jungle. *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
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    Japanese artist Yasuaki Onishi creates stunning sculptures using humble hot glue guns. *Photo: Yasuaki Onishi*
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