Jacob Hashimoto is an American artist known for his innovative installations and wall works composed of modular, handcrafted elements, most famously, bamboo-and-paper “kites.” He currently lives and works in New York.
Hashimoto earned his B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996. His work blends influences from painting, sculpture, craft, and design, drawing on traditions such as modernism, landscape-based abstraction, and Japanese craftsmanship.
His immersive, layered compositions explore themes of nature, cosmology, virtual environments, and the interplay of light and shadow. In addition to his signature kite works, he has also experimented with collage, printmaking, and sculptural environments.
This hanging work features a dynamic arrangement of kite-like forms suspended on black thread between twenty-four upper and lower dowels. Primarily in red and white, with subtle touches of yellow and deeper tones, the forms vary in size and pattern, overlapping one another to reveal and conceal glimpses of color and design. Each piece is painstakingly constructed by hand, a hallmark of Hashimoto’s practice, with layers of paper carefully folded, cut, and painted before being assembled into the suspended composition. While each form is unique, recurring motifs create a visual rhythm, a muted yellow line appears as part of several overlapping forms, creating the perception of a continuous line where none physically exists. The interplay of repetition, variation, and layered suspension invites active engagement, as the eye traces patterns, connections, and the delicate dance of shapes in space.
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago
Private collection, acquired from the above 2005-2025
Sotheby's New York October 2025