Funakoshi Katsura has been acclaimed since the early 1980s for opening up new possibilities in representational sculpture with half-length human figures, carved from camphor tree with eyes of marble. In Funakoshi’s own words, a full-body statue represents “any anonymous person,” a bust portrays “only the specificities of one individual,” but a half-length figure “strongly conveys a sense of presence as a physical object” (from Today’s Artists V-’93: Katsura Funakoshi). Incidentally, this work is not modeled on any one person. The thing over his shoulder is a rubber tube, evidently intended to express in physical form a glossy, sticky black band from shoulder to chest appearing in the preliminary drawing.