3rd Place winner
The Holy Furuition
DESCRIPTION
I am an orchardist. I have endeavored to create an artistic record as a photograph of fruit that I have grown in its "most visually beautiful form prior to being harvested". My artwork is similar to "Botanical Art," seeking to depict both precision and a level of detail, combined with aesthetic beauty. Multiple fruits ripen in orchards. However, not all fruit can be considered an object of beauty, in terms of its shape or leaf distribution. Daily tending of plants which is done all year round, as well as weather conditions that change on a yearly basis result in annual variations in the final quality of products.These works were actually printed on vellum, which is a type of genuine parchment, after which, I scanned them as a digital image. (Currently I can print to full size Velum.) There was a time when botanical art used to be drawn on parchments, so in the same way, I also wanted to print on vellum. Because I printed on parchment where life existed, it feels as if the fruits once again had life. In addition, they have unique DNA and cannot be replicated.
AUTHOR
Masumi Shiohara was born in 1974 in Nagano, Japan. He worked at a micro-machining company as a development engineer. After leaving the company, he took over the management of the family orchard from his parents and is now running a farm. While growing fruit here he became interested in capturing them into works of photographic art, a skill which he picked up by himself. The inspiration to capture these photographically originally came when he was requested to supply fruit on a branch to a botanical artist - since then he has continued producing photographic art works of fruit on a branch. He is printing ‘the works like botanical art with white back ground’ on vellum of genuine parchment, and ‘the works with a black background’ on glossy paper. From now on, he is keen to present works with the theme of the importance and value of food another line of work he is involved in. 