About the artwork

The artist worked on two spaces, both of which came with a Buddhist altar. Ikebana has its origin in “fresh flowers for the altar” and “yorishiro (i.e., a place, object or person inhabited by a God’s spirit).” The ikebana done by this artist became a work of offering and its embodiment. For material, he chose Japanese white-bark magnolia. The artist was attracted to the shapes of dead leaves whose lives had just ended. The dead leaves, which are the crystallization of a year-long drama of life and its climax, were gathered to form a momentary radiance of life.