Perfection - is the word that comes to mind when observing Hiroki Yasutomi's works. Applying a technique called hatching that was developed in the Middle Ages, especially from the old master prints of the fifteenth century, Yasutomi's pencil drawings are highly sophisticated compositions of hyperrealist nature in which pictorial elements are used to create the illusion of a reality which in fact either does not exist or cannot be seen by the human eye. As the main concept of the hatching technique is the quantity, thickness and spacing of seemingly endless layers of lines, an image appears through fine lighting and shading effects. In Yasutomi's Difference to Reach Me (Lot 1155) the pleasing simplicity of the medium as well as the particular characteristics of the artistic technique turn a meaningless image of a rainy night into a scene of delicate transparency, perspective precision and subtle metaphorsim.

In his signature style, Yasutomi directs the viewer's attention to the numerous details found in his drawings, such as the thousands of tiny rain drops caught on a pair of transparent umbrellas lying in intimate embrace on a wet ground. As the light from the window in the back illuminates the subject matter, a dramatic and highly atmospheric composition is created. The artist's ability to portray the sensuousness of a fleeting moment in time with such great delicacy and simplicity; his ability to infuse it with depth of emotion and elements of poetic expression convey both his intellectualism and artistic brilliance.