Face No. 5

Face No. 5 (1991) belongs to Hagiwara's Face series, which explored the human countenance as a zone of abstract form and psychological projection. The numbered series suggests sustained investigation: each face a different configuration of the same elements — eyes, nose, mouth — arranged to convey psychological state through compositional means rather than realistic portraiture. By 1991, Hagiwara's carving technique had achieved maximum expressive economy, and the faces from this period distill the human presence to its most essential formal constituents.