As Hirosuke Yabe said in 2018, “I think beauty is in rough surfaces and rough expressions.” His woodwork, which resists the polished treatment characteristic of Japanese sculpture, is a powerful metaphor about the not-so-idyllic realities of human life. Similarly, Summer Wheat describes her paintings, drawings, and installations as, “sensual, disturbing, ugly but beautiful.” Yabe’s scarified totems and Wheat’s disquieting depictions of strangers both seem to say that perfection is not truth. —E.C.