Shigeo Toya, the Japanese artist renowned for his chainsaw-hewn wood sculptures, has died at age 79. Born in 1947 in a small village in Nagano Prefecture, Toya began his signature Woods series in 1984, carving rough textures into tall lumber and arranging the pieces like a forest. His series Twenty Eight Deaths featured stacked wooden blocks with cavities and burn marks. Toya represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 1988 and later exhibited at the Asia Pacific Triennial (1993) and Gwangju Biennale (2000). A major survey of his work was held at the Nagano Prefectural Art Museum and The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, in 2022–23.
Toya’s death marks the loss of a distinctive voice in postwar Japanese sculpture who deliberately turned away from the prevailing currents of post-minimalism and Mono-ha to embrace a raw, totemic materiality rooted in his rural upbringing. His work, which drew on the duality of nature—both wondrous and frightening—offered a powerful counterpoint to conceptual trends, reminding viewers of sculpture’s primal physical presence. His legacy endures through his influence on contemporary wood carving and his representation of Japan on the global stage.