Oishi Sayaka 大石早矢香 Japanese, b. 1980
H22.8 x W19.8 x D18.7 cm
Acquired into Permanent Museum Collections
Further images
Oishi Sayaka’s decorative surfaces behold a parade of flora and fauna. She is fascinated by the duality of human and nature, and how this relationship is treated in different religions and cultures. Oishi examines the way that beauty in human society and nature is the result of necessary survival.
Befitting these tenets, this owl sake cup is inspired by the recent appearance of a famed owl in New York’s central park. The park as a location where nature flourishes in a metropolitan and urban environment showcases the mediated interaction between man and nature. Meanwhile, the subject Barry the Barred Owl, symbolized such an interface: having attracted a devoted digital following of New Yorkers, she showcases how nature can create communities that exist tangibly within the park space, and intangibly in cyberspace. Oishi’s sake cup remind us of such tensions- or rather, the fragility- between man & nature.