Installation view of “Sakura Shibefuru” (2021), salt, at Setouchi City Art Museum. All images © Motoi Yamamoto, shared with permission
Sprawling across a bright red floor at Setouchi City Art Museum is Motoi Yamamoto’s sweeping installation of 100,000 cherry blossoms. Using a small, petal stencil and poured salt, the Kanazawa-based artist meticulously laid a mass of mineral-based buds during the course of 55 hours and nine days. Constructed radially, “Sakura Shibefuru,” or “Falling Cherry Petals” mimics the natural patterns formed around trees after the blossoms drop and end their life cycle each spring, a process Yamamoto (previously) says informed much of the work:
When the red-purple buds fall, for many people, this is also the time when they lose interest due to the flower season being over. However, this time can also be seen as a small nudge to think about the coming fresh greens of spring and midsummer…While thinking about the future of the buds, I created petals that had just fallen, piling the petals while contemplating the trees that produced these beautiful flowers with their thick trunks, supple branches, and powerful roots.
Paired with the crystalline blossoms are two of Yamamoto’s sculptural works from 1995, which the artist considers the origin of his practice and which he created following his sister’s death from a brain tumor. “This was an attempt to engrave into my heart the moment when an important life ceased to exist,” he says. Creating painstaking salt-based pieces like “Sakura Shibefuru”—which Yamamoto shares is, in part, a response to his wife’s death a few years ago—is meditative and a way to work through grief and retain memories.
“Sakura Shibefuru” is on view in Setouchi until May 5, and the artist currently is working on a large-scale project for Suzu’s Oku-Noto Triennale 2020+, which will be installed this fall in a former kindergarten building. Until then, watch Yamamoto’s works take shape on Instagram and YouTube, and shop originals, prints, and books in his store. (via designboom)
