Toshiko Takaezu

"Tree-Man Forest," 1989, is a reverential meditation on both the precarity and resilience of natural life. Takaezu was deeply moved by a trip she took in 1973 to “Devastation Trail” on the Big Island of Hawaii, where she encountered a forest laid bare by the volcanic eruption of Kīlauea Iki in 1959. Takaezu paid homage to this transformational event first in clay, and then in bronze, giving permanence to these majestic forms and embedding them into the land.