Take one look at Japanese artist takanori aiba’s tiny kingdom sculptures, where entire miniature communities are built around bonsai trees, and you’ll feel like Gulliver stepping foot on the imaginary land of Lilliput.
Take one look at Japanese artist takanori aiba’s tiny kingdom sculptures, where entire miniature communities are built around bonsai trees, and you’ll feel like Gulliver stepping foot on the imaginary land of Lilliput.
The Japanese art of bonsai is a painstaking, meticulous process using cultivation techniques like pruning, root reduction, potting, defoliation and grafting to produce small trees contained in little pots, which mimic the shape and style of mature, full-sized trees.
The artist has not only perfected this technique of miniaturisation, but also added scale models of windmills, lighthouses, boats, cars, statues, cliffs, beaches, flags, lampposts and even the michelin man to create three-dimensional dream island resorts featuring miniature villages.
Dream Small
Takanori’s creations are shaped by his early experience of drawing, bonsai-making, model railway-making, the magical world of Walt Disney and maze illustration. Since young, he has had a fascination with small things and would warp himself into imaginary worlds; as an adult, he has succeeded in making those fantasies come true.
He recalls: “I often went to the hill behind my house to pick uniquely shaped maple branches. Staring at the branch created some sort of illusion, as if I were a Lilliputian, relating to the island in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
“A small branch became a giant tree. Techniques of how to expand my imagination and expression were already cultivated at an early age. When I was 14 years old, I went into raptures over Disney’s TV shows. I drew inspiration from their settings like Sleeping Beauty’s castle, Frontierland and the Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.”
After building a career as a maze illustrator and interior architect for 30 years, he decided to return to his primary source of creativity – his childhood fantasies – to create Lilliputian artworks. He says: “I never forgot my dream where I created my own original theme park, like Walt Disney did. These works are a part of my dreams, and I believed that these models could be realised.”
Today, he has been crafting mini-universes wrapped around bonsai trees for close to a decade, thus proposing a modern take on this traditional Japanese art form representing harmony between man and nature. None of his designs are constructed based on real structures.
1. Ice Cream Packages Tower, 2011, 60x40x85cm
2 Bonsai-A, 2004, mixed media, 40x30x40cm
“WHEN I WAS 14 YEARS OLD, I WENT INTO RAPTURES OVER DISNEY’S TV SHOWS. I DREW INSPIRATION FROM THEIR SETTINGS LIKE SLEEPING BEAUTY’S CASTLE, FRONTIERLAND AND THE NAUTILUS FROM 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA.”
– JAPANESE ARTIST TAKANORI AIBA
5. Bonsai-B, 2005, mixed media, 42x37x48cm
6. Hawaiian Pineapple Resort, 2009, 42x42x70cm
THE ARTIST
Born in 1953 in Yokohama, Japan, Takanori Aiba lives and works in Tokyo. He studied textile design at Tokyo Zokei University, before his first job as a freelance maze illustrator in 1978. Those maze works were serialised in Japanese fashion magazine Popeye for 10 years. In 1981, he founded Graphics & Designing Inc, and thereafter worked on major interior design projects such as the Shinyokohama Ramen Museum, Museum of The Little Prince in Hakone and Ninja Akasaka restaurant in Tokyo, drawing on theme park design principles. He is currently working on a gambling space, with the aim of reversing the bad image of gambling in Japan. Since 2003, he has been creating incredibly detailed, 3-D tiny universes combining his knowledge and experience as a maze illustrator and as interior architect – in terms of his skills in the drawing of labyrinths and the design of physical space.
