Ken Higaki

Ken Higaki paints where instinct overrides performance - where flesh betrays the self and bodies reveal their animal core. Originally from Kagawa, Japan and now based in Los Angeles, Higaki fuses traditional Venetian oil techniques with a contemporary excavation of raw emotion. His work sits at the intersection of beauty and brutality, desire and violence - exploring the deep emotional registers that lie beneath human behavior. In his preview of what’s to come at Sabbatikal, Ken exhibits two intimate paintings titled Sheep and Thrust and invites viewers into a world where control disintegrates and instinct takes the lead.

Raised between the rural quiet of Japan and the suburban sprawl of Portland, Oregon, Higaki brings a layered cultural lens to his practice. His use of chiaroscuro and tightly rendered figures pays homage to Baroque drama, but his subjects are contemporary in their urgency. In the studio, he examines emotional and bodily gestures as compositions of tension - moments where desire turns grotesque or grief turns erotic. His figures often blur the line between human and beast, not to provoke horror, but to expose what’s universal in our hungers.

“Sometimes the most honest image is the one that repels you. If I can make the viewer feel conflicted, aroused, unsettled, implicated, then I’ve done something truthful.”

In Sheep, a human face emerges from a lamb’s fleece, calm and watchful. The creature is neither costume nor caricature - it’s an embodiment of vulnerability. The dark backdrop frames the subject in theatrical isolation, calling into question the roles we perform and the instincts we suppress.

In Thrust, hands and faces melt into one another in a blur of flesh and force. It's unclear who is touching whom - whether the violence is self-inflicted or shared. The work pulses with psychological heat: an eruption of libido, confusion, and uncontainable feeling.

This marks the beginning of Higaki’s relationship with Sabbatikal, where he will debut an exhibition in September 2025. The show will further examine embodiment, animality, and the thresholds between control and chaos - where every touch reveals something deeper, darker, and undeniably human.