Kelly Akashi
Cultivator (Fruiting Whorl), 2021
- Medium
- Carved, polished, and waxed travertine, cast lead crystal, lost-wax cast bronze
- Dimensions
- 18 1/2 × 18 × 2 1/2 in. (46.99 × 45.72 × 6.35 cm)
- Accession Number
- 2022.4
- Credit
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Purchase with funds provided by Mandy and Cliff Einstein in honor of Johanna Burton
In her sculptural practice, Kelly Akashi embraces a wide array of materials to explore the passage of time and the concept of memory across both human and geological scales of history, drawing on the Japanese notion of mono no aware, a position of awareness of and sensitivity to impermanence and the transient nature of all things.
In Cultivator (Fruiting Whorl), Akashi carves travertine into a fossil-like spiral. Atop it rests a crystal hand cast from the artist’s own, holding a cast-bronze fungal mass.