MAKOTO AZUMA

Makoto Azuma is a Japenese botanical artist who works mainly with sculpting and 3d work. His most recent project is recreating iconic flower paintings, i.e. Vincent Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' in real life with a clear glass vase and bursts of the exact flowers. However my favourite projects of his are his 'Iced Flowers' which he created for the spring/summer 2017 Dries Van Noten women's show and his 2017 spring/summer 'Bottle Flower' collection. The 'Iced Flowers' show featured huge glass ice sculptures filled with flowers and were placed along a cat walk where models would walk around, i particularly love how clear the ice is yet you can see tiny air bubbles in the ice, so the flowers don't quite look like they're floating, but instead more like they are frozen in time, unable to decay or wilt. I like this idea of being able to preserve nature in its most beautiful state so you can continue to enjoy and work from them. On the other hand, I like his series of bottled flowers for the opposite reason, encased in a large clear jar you can see the flowers beginning to decay and its natural progression as the flowers begin to change colour. I intend to continue using flowers in jars to better my work and also try his 'Iced Flowers' idea, however with something versatile that won't melt like resin or clear glue.