Japanese artist Yuichi Hirako, born in 1982 in Okayama Prefecture
and now working primarily in Tokyo. “The relationship between plants
and humans” is a major theme that Yuichi Hirako has been
continuously exploring in his artwork. When the artist studied at
Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London, he began
to ruminate on his living experiences shaped by the environments of
the parks in London and the primeval forests in his hometown-Okayama
Prefecture, Japan. At the same time, he identified the difference
between the ways the East and the West “connect with nature”.
Hirako’s childhood memory was constructed by his intimate
interaction with the unspoiled countryside and woods. Not until he
grew up did he get to visit the urban green spaces for leisure and
recreation in the West. His childhood experience with hometown
nature and adulthood experience with urban greens illustrates the
appearance of country life and urban life respectively. Recognizing
the shifting time-space of plants, the artist looks further into the
human-nature relationships in the industrialized cities.