AGNSW collection Suda Yoshihiro Rose 2004
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/287.2006.a-b/
Simply, I want to know how detailed I can make it, how real I can make it... It is not the fashion now, to observe something and make it very skilfully…
— Suda Yoshihiro
The contemporary artwork in this conversation is easy to miss at first. Carved from wood by Tokyo artist Suda Yoshihiro, it floats high in a corner of the white wall to your right. Once you have found it, this tiny object still poses a challenge to the eye and mind. Suda’s skill is such that it is hard to believe this is not a real flower and a single petal.
With its delicacy and reverence for nature, Suda’s carving is a fitting companion for the 19th-century artworks alongside. Drawing on a tradition that emerged in the Heian period more than 1000 years ago, the screen and the handscroll use the changing of the seasons as metaphors for human emotions. They express, as Suda does too, a poignant sense of the transience of things. Suda is also using tradition to reflect on the dilemmas of art-making today. In a world defined by spectacle and information overload, how loud should an artwork be? Some artists respond by producing works that shout for attention. Suda takes the opposite approach, creating objects so quiet that we must slow down and re-focus to perceive them.
