Flower Art: Makoto Azuma

Description

The art of Makoto Azuma uses flowers and plants as its starting point, but juxtaposes their timeless yet transient beauty with an incredibly diverse range of striking settings. In a series of sculptures, installations and interactive events, he delights in blurring the boundaries between nature and artifice. Azuma founded the floral atelier Jardins des Fleurs in 2002, taking commissions from private clients as well as brands and corporations, both in Japan and all over the world. His parallel career as an artist began in 2005 and involves creating and exhibiting artworks that turn flowers and plants into a medium for self-expression. In 2008, Azuma founded AMKK (Azuma Makoto Kaju Kenkyujo), a group specializing in experimental floral creation, with the aim of seeking new forms of botanical beauty and new ways to exhibit them. His works have travelled the globe, from barren deserts to frozen expanses, from thousands of feet below the sea to the very edge of space. Featuring more than sixty projects captured in breathtaking photography, this beautiful book is the most comprehensive showcase of Azuma's art ever published.

Makoto Azuma co-founded the floral atelier Jardins des Fleurs in 2002 with photographer Shunsuke Shiinoki. Azuma has since become internationally renowned for his extraordinary 'botanical sculptures', which he has exhibited extensively in New York City and Europe - and even shot into space. Azuma and Shiinoki have collaborated on three volumes of Encyclopedia of Flowers.

'[Pushes] the boundaries of art and photography to the outer limits with bold, adventurous installations portraying flowers and trees in environments where normally they could never exist' - Royal Photographic Society Journal