Art
Craft

#exhibition
#houses
#wood
#woodworking
#Yukihiro Akama

Yukihiro Akama Carves a Whimsical World of Miniature Wooden Houses

January 18, 2024

Kate Mothes

A whimsical wooden house sculpture.

Photos by Red Photography, © Yukihiro Akama, courtesy of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, shared with permission

In Huddersfield, England, a half hour’s drive down the road from Yorkshire Sculpture Park, artist Yukihiro Akama fashions a whimsical, miniature world from within a furniture maker’s workshop. In his forthcoming solo exhibition at YSP—his largest to date—the artist presents 55 intricately carved wooden houses in Basho no Kankaku—A Sense of Place 場所の感覚.

Akama, who pursued a career in architecture while living in Japan, often relied on digital tools and felt disconnected from traditional methods of building and working with his hands. After he moved to the U.K. in 2011, he began to carve small houses that reminded him of vernacular styles, like stilt houses, that he would see on his travels around Asia. Inspiration also comes from Japanese temples and shrines, particularly elements from 4,000-year-old ruins dating to the Jōmon era.

Starting with a hand-drawn sketch, Akama allows intuition and the characteristics of each piece of wood guide the final design. Rough hunks of timber transform into elegant, low shapes or tall, spindly structures, with sizes ranging from a little bigger than a fifty cent piece—about 1.5 inches—to more than 40 inches tall. Sometimes the artist adds a cantilevered effect, occasionally sticking on pebbles and clay to add organic textures to the surfaces, then finishing with a dash of a blow torch before polishing.

Basho no Kankaku—A Sense of Place 場所の感覚 will be on view from March 9 to June 30, and you can learn more on the park’s website. Explore more of the artist’s work on his site and Instagram.

 

A collection of whimsical wooden house sculptures.

Two side-by-side images, both featuring a whimsical wooden stilt house sculpture.

A tall wooden stilt house sculpture.

Two side-by-side images, both featuring a whimsical wooden stilt house sculpture.

A long, low wooden stilt house sculpture.

A whimsical wooden stilt house sculpture that appears to hang out over a rock (also made of wood).

A tiny whimsical wooden stilt house sculpture.

A process image of the artist using a chisel to carve the shape of a wooden house sculpture.

Work in progress. Photo by Benedict Phillips

#exhibition
#houses
#wood
#woodworking
#Yukihiro Akama

 

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. You’ll connect with a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, read articles and newsletters ad-free, sustain our interview series, get discounts and early access to our limited-edition print releases, and much more. Join now!

 

 

Also on Colossal

Related posts on Colossal about exhibition houses wood woodworking Yukihiro Akama

In Clever Stop-Motion Tutorials by omozoc, Wooden Boards Slice Like Sticks of Butter
Miniature Figures Carved in Wood Cradle Colorful Silk Lace in Ágnes Herczeg’s Tender Sculptures
Elegant Animals Commune and Contemplate in Hand-Carved Wooden Sculptures by Nikichi
Time-Lapse Video of Woodworker Keith Williams Shows How Flat Plywood Boards Become Smooth Patterned Spheres
Freewheeling Hares and Bespectacled Kangaroos Hop Into Hugo Horita’s Playful Wooden Menagerie

This article comes from the Internet:Yukihiro Akama Carves a Whimsical World of Miniature Wooden Houses