Saltscapes by Motoi Yamamoto

We’ve come across many weird and wonderful projects over the years, searching for content each and every day and I hasten to add we’ve seen our fair share of disturbing, lots of remarkable, and the occasional mind boggling project on our internet travels. Coming across a completely new idea or project however doesn’t transpire every day, so when we find short films like this, one that explores the work of artist Motoi Yamamoto and his “saltscapes”, it’s quite refreshing, it really makes the crawling we do across the web worthwhile.

I can confidently say I’ve never seen this medium of creativity before, so I was completely blown away by the scale of what Motoi creates with such a minute material. His creations really do epitomise the idea of slowly chipping away at the details of a project until the overall picture comes together, the patience he must have to spend so many hours gently shaping and pouring the salt into position is unbelievable. What I love about his work is that in many respects he is pushing the boundaries of what has been done before, I think for lots of people his saltscapes will challenge what they consider art to be. Personally I’m rather fond of the notion that something as everyday as salt can bring so much joy and spark to a person, I trust this is something Motoi will transfer to his audience also.

I was intrigued to learn what led Motoi to create in this way and the answer in many respects is in honour of his sister who passed away whilst he was studying at art school. He no longer felt the energy he had for traditional painting so he began searching for a material or process that held more significance to him as an artist. Salt in Japan, as Motoi explains in the film below, is considered a funeral material and this struck a chord with the young graduate. Today his work as you will soon see not only holds great significance to him personally but also an awe inspiring undertone simply from the form alone. I was really humbled to learn of both Motoi’s story and work, together they reminded me of a quote I came across previously that went something along the lines of “Making pulls creative people up when life is impossible”. To me this individual is a real inspiration, I hope you enjoy learning more about him in the film below.

www.theavantgardediaries.com
www.motoi.biz

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