Art Department

Back to Contents of Issue: November 2000
by Andrew Pothecary

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Nudes and flowers are an art staple. They can be an exercise in representing nature through your chosen medium -- how painterly can you make a petal, how petal-like your paint; how body-like is sculpted stone, how sculptural the body?

When it comes to the digital we're all familiar with the nudes of otaku dreams, but for flowers try the almost tangible renderings of Mitsuo Yamaguchi: flower art that is both unmistakably by computer yet captures a simplified beauty. He's been making flowers with illustration software for a while; you can see the results at his wallflower Web site (www.asahi-net.or.jp/~me6m-ymgc/wallflower/).

They're made both for his own satisfaction and as part of a small (and getting smaller!) gathering of friends who collaborate in the yearly ARTMIX exhibition -- a rented gallery show for which Mitsuo also makes the Web site.

The flowers usually appear by themselves but have also shown up as elements in artworks: in cards, as actual lantern shades, even forming the Superman logo.

When asked to appear on this page he had only one request: "Make it gorgeous."

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