Sakura

There is an old cherry tree in my garden. It has been left abandoned in adverse conditions for some time, and has been home to caterpillars and bugs. Cherry blossom is one of flowers that symbolize the beginning of spring in Japan. When cherry trees are fully blossomed they look magnificent and they leave us with a sort of sentiment when flowers fall form trees as they are easily blown by wind. Its flowering duration is very short so it is our tradition that the time of blossoms we observe them with great affection. In March and April, anywhere in Japan you can see a beautiful scenery of cherry trees with their pale pink flower. These trees are well treated and maintained carefully in order to protect from disease and bugs. Therefore, their leaves keep their shape and all balanced in size even when they fall from trees as litters. In autumn, when I picked up the leaves of the abandoned old cherry tree in my gurdan I could observe a striking difference from trees elsewhere. The leaves looked ugly, were varied in size and bitten by bugs. There was no single leaf that remained original figure. However I found the uniqueness, the strength and the self-existence in the tree and its leaves after a half-year observation with which I have expressed in this series of my works. For us, when asked of cherry we tend to imagine its flower. But we should be reminded of the plant system; a trunk, branches and twigs which make up an appearance of a tree, leaves which give us a beautiful scenery and, hidden in the soil, roots which take up nutrients necessary for life of the tree. When all these functions are at work, then, for the first time the tree can blossom. It is my intention to display the charm of individual leaf that are somewhat different from the beauty of flower.