Conceptual artist Azuma Makoto pushes the boundaries of traditional Japanese flower arrangement, taking his plant and flower designs to entirely new levels. Makoto's 10-year project Shiki: Landscape and Beyond, captures the journey of a Japanese white pine bonsai tree around (and above) the globe. Makoto creates art using plants placed in bizarre and unnatural settings and, through his botanical sculptures, embraces the forms of beauty within the natural world from an abstract perspective.
In this project, the artist explains how the botanical plant suspended from a square carbon-fiber frame is an examination of how human limitations are placed upon the infinite aspects of nature, in their attempts to contain and control. His experimental pieces put flower arrangements into situations that would never occur naturally, in order to facilitate cognitive friction or roughness when viewing his work. With his art, Makoto likes to explore all aspects of the plant world, including the deterioration of the plants he arranges, not ignoring the death behind the life of what he shoots. Makoto works in collaboration with botanical photographer Shunsuke Shiinoki, and the two maintain Jardin des Fleurs, a haute couture flower shop.
From now until December 5th, Makoto's unique exhibition Shiki: Landscape and Beyond is on display at the Zhulong Gallery in Dallas.
Azuma Makoto: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Tumblr
Shiinoki Shunsuke: Instagram
Zhulong Gallery: Website
via [Designboom]
