Nobuyoshi Araki (*1940)
Daraku-en, Japan, 2012
The large-format studio still lifes of arranged flowers, dolls and dragon figures immediately open up Araki's major work themes: beauty and transience, desire and pain, life and death. These are topics that the artist has taken up cyclically over decades in his tireless creative drive, excessively exploring and developing them further. In his intense colour stagings, he not only transports us to traditional Japanese pictorial worlds, from ikebana flower art to Godzilla distopias, but also allows us a supposedly deep glimpse into his personal soul.
The »Daraku-en« still lifes are situated between Flowers and Jamorinsky from 2005-2006 and the ongoing Paradise series, both in terms of time and content.
Digital chromogenic print (Epson), print date: 2012
Image dimensions ca. 125 x 92 cm (125 x 92 inch)
Object dimensions 138 x 112 cm (138 x 112 inch)
Mounting, Framing Mounted in black wooden frame c. 143 x 117 cm
Prints / Japanese Photography / Botanik / Vanitas /
