Artist Inspiration: Kazuhito Takadoi

Artist:

• Kazuhito Takadoi is a gardener and an artist, while Nikolaus Lang is an archaeologist and an artist. It is interesting and exciting when artist combine their work with other hobbies. 
• minimalist Japanese aesthetic, ideals for balance, space and simple forms
• Interested in the use of light and how it expresses shadows and details like decay.

Work: 

• Creates pictures using leaves, twigs and grass from his garden
• sews moderately dry materials onto handmade japanese paper
• colours and textures of his materials change through time
• collecting process: separates natural materials into shades and colour

Takadoi simple piece has gone through multiple processes and attention to detail. To begin he created a circle of grass through placing strands of grass through the holes of a piece of paper (image below). Then he has sewn thin strands of leaves to the outer of the circle and then sewn them off center from the middle. . He has used the colour of the grass strands to emphasise the three-dimensional quality of the sphere. For instance, he creates shadow using darker strands and uses lighter strands to create the highlights. Placing the long rigid branch contrasts with the soft and light qualities of the sphere. 

This work appears to be an abstraction of a tree with no leaves. The organic white puffs look like a cocoon attached to the tree, in which the scale has reversed. The large scale of the lifeless white puffs compared to the sparse tree gives me the thought that the cocoon is seeping out energy and life from the tree like a leech. It is very apparent the Takadoi utilises the contrast between circular and rigid forms. 

http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/garden-art.html