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In this series of works, the artist brings together in one digital image different types of flowers, structuring it in a labyrinth type of visuality with carpet-like expansion. Murayama goes even further, bringing separate flowers in one “digital garden”. Here, the image can be enjoyed as an overwhelming and continuous totality while each separate plant, which opens its transparent structures to the viewer, can be investigated as a separate organism. In the current body of work, 12 flowers and buds were used for the composition: Chicory, Bindweed, Fuchsia, Geranium, Hebe, Japanese Honeysuckle, Bladder Campion, Shrubby Cinquefoil, Spanish Broom, Green Bristlegrass, Christmas Bells and Glory Lily. Most of the flowers were collected and researched by the artist close to the Thames Estuary (where the river meets the waters of the Northern Sea) during a residency program in “Metal Culture” in Southend-on-Sea, UK. Carpets of Middle East, especially the examples of Persian Carpets, were used as inspirational sources for Botech Compositions.

The work allows the audience to grasp the structure of the flowers that are precise reproductions of the natural plants and let us compare the various specimens that coexists in this “digital herbarium”.

— Rodion Trofimchenko, director Frantic Gallery

Macoto Murayama, born in 1984 in Kanagawa, graduated in Spatial Design from the Information Design Department at Miyagi University, and completed the courses at the Institute of Advanced Media Art and Sciences (IAMAS), Media Expression Department. His work has been part of several group shows in Japan and Germany. His solo exhibitions include Inorganic Flora at Frantic Gallery in Tokyo (2011) and Botech Compositions presented during Liverpool Biennial 2014. Macoto Murayama has been awarded with the Asia Digital Art Award for his works.

Images courtesy of the Frantic Gallery. More information about the artist.