EDWARD LUPER The Namban Ship of Plastic Fools2025 61 x 91.2cm (with frame: 66.1 x 96.5cm). image 1

EDWARD LUPER The Namban Ship of Plastic Fools2025 61 x 91.2cm (with frame: 66.1 x 96.5cm). image 2

Lot 33

EDWARD LUPER
The Namban Ship of Plastic Fools
2025 61 x 91.2cm (with frame: 66.1 x 96.5cm).

Bonhams Staff Art Show

4 – 22 August 2025, 12:00 BST

Online, London, New Bond Street

Sold for £3,600 inc. premium

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EDWARD LUPER

The Namban Ship of Plastic Fools
2025
Mineral pigment and gold leaf on washi paper mounted on wood panel
61 x 91.2cm (with frame: 66.1 x 96.5cm).

Footnotes

The Namban Ship of Plastic Fools is a playful yet pointed fusion of my lifelong fascinations: traditional Japanese art, especially Namban screens with their fantastical depictions of foreign ships and encounters, and my childhood love of Lego, particularly the iconic pirate ships I would build and rebuild endlessly. This work brings those worlds together, reimagining the classic Nanban vessel not with Portuguese traders, but with plastic minifigures indulging in a theatre of absurdity. Beneath the gold clouds and stylised waves, the chaos aboard reflects my frustration with the state of contemporary affairs: a drifting world of contradiction, excess, and comic folly. There is satire here, but light in tone, closer to Bosch than bitterness: a floating world, yes, but one afloat on its own ridiculousness.

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- Modern British & Irish Art
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EDWARD LUPER The Namban Ship of Plastic Fools2025 61 x 91.2cm (with frame: 66.1 x 96.5cm).