NOIR KEI NINOMIYA X AZUMA
MAKOTO
Azuma Makoto is a flower artist who
pioneered the genre of botanical
sculptures, staging astounding feats
with this most delicate of materials. He
has launched bonsai trees into space,
and plunged bouquets into the deep
sea. His work explores the ideas of
decay and ephemerality, as evidenced
by his Iced Flowers series, his spiral of
10,000 blooms slowly swallowed back
into the earth, and his floral sculptures
set ablaze. Makoto is also a fan of
unlikely interventions—he has installed
a pine tree in a snowfield, a palm tree
in the desert, and a tiny bonsai in the
heart of a cavernous power plant.
An equally unexpected (though more
small-scaled) intervention came on
the Paris runways this season when
his floral sculptures sprouted from the
heads of the models on Kei Ninomiya’s
runway in a marriage of dark romance
and splendorous decay.