“What is essential is invisible to the eye,” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in his 1943 novella The Little Prince, a sentiment that drives Rui Sasaki’s work. From what the artist (beforehand) describes as a “mysterious and ambiguous material,” botanicals seem to drift in frozen cubes of water.
Sasaki employs glass to doc and protect the character of the current. Works like “Subtle Intimacy” reply to locations and experiences the place she feels current. “It is vital for me to connect who I am and where I am, especially when I am in unfamiliar spaces,” the artist tells Colossal. She likens intimacy to nostalgia, exploring the depth of feeling related to reminiscences, consolation, and safety.
Sasaki traces her fascination with the medium to childhood, particularly to its visible similarities to the surfaces of ponds or lakes. “I was always wondering how I could make something out of water,” she says. “When I saw molten glass at a glassblowing studio during a summer family trip in Okinawa, I fell in love with it.”
When Sasaki moved to the U.S. from Japan in 2007, she started incorporating vegetation into her work as a approach to “recover my senses from my loss of intimacy and home in my mother country,” she says. When she returned to Japan 5 years later, she continued to hone her deal with botanicals.
Enchanted by how vegetation can specific experiences of her environment, Sasaki portrays particular person botanicals in sculptures ranging in measurement from a number of ft huge to room-size installations. She says:
Gathering vegetation is crucial side of the work. I take advantage of all my 5 senses in gathering vegetation. That helps me to recall my previous reminiscences, particularly in my childhood, and to attach my emotions of intimacy in the direction of my nation, Japan.
Sasaki locations collected specimens between two sheets of glass and fires the piece in a kiln. The plant turns to white ash, leaving the impression of petals, leaves, and veins. Air bubbles that naturally emerge within the warmth are additionally preserved in what the artist likes to a time capsule. The unique type of the plant now not exists however its impression endures.
Dualities like presence and absence, fragility and energy, and transparency and opacity merge with Sasaki’s curiosity in “befriending” glass whereas reveling within the information that she is going to by no means totally comprehend all the pieces about it.
In the event you’re in Denmark, you’ll be able to see Sasaki’s sculptures at Glas from March 22 to September 28 in Ebeltoft. Her work may even be on view later this yr on the Aichi Triennale 2025. Discover extra on the artist’s web site, and comply with Instagram for updates.
