Kelly Akashi: Cultivator: Aspen Art Museum

Akashi presents a unique larger-than-life-sized bronze cast of her hand overgrown with glass flowers and vines. As a cast of the artist’s own flesh, the piece captures her hand in motion as if conjuring a natural world into existence. This sculpture affords a macroscopic perspective on her skin creases, cuticles, fingernails, and pores. Recreating two different living forms—flowers and flesh—this work dwells on our human interaction with nature. Incorporating plants during Aspen’s warmer months, Cultivator presents the possibility of growth from decay, and joins together materials that are at once delicate and durable. In doing so, Akashi’s sculpture takes on qualities that are at once uncanny, appealing, and familiar.