Ongoing installation

This monumental bronze was cast from the artist’s own hand—complete with details of cuticles, fingernails, and creases—as a record of her slowly changing body. Rising from a planter filled with native plants, the hand’s fingers gently support an array of oversized glass-blown flowers modeled after endangered California species, including Presidio clarkia and threadleaf brodiaea. Within Akashi’s practice, the materials of bronze and glass are prized for their alchemical potential in shifting from liquid to solid states, a transformative possibility that resonates with the more visible changes to plants and human bodies over time. Materially and conceptually, Cultivator speaks to the intertwined, interdependent futures of humans and the world that surrounds us. It is a monument to intentional care and responsibility toward others, an entreaty to cultivate rather than destroy.

Support

Museum purchase with funds provided by Kimberly and Patrick Lin, 2022.10. 

Operations and programs at the San José Museum of Art are made possible by principal support from SJMA’s Board of Trustees, a Cultural Affairs Grant from the City of San José, and the Lipman Family Foundation; by lead support from the Adobe Foundation, the California Arts Council, Toby and Barry Fernald, Brook Hartzell and Tad Freese, the Richard A. Karp Charitable Foundation, Tammy and Tom Kiely, the Knight Foundation, Evelyn and Rick Neely, Yvonne and Mike Nevens, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Skyline Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the SJMA Director's Council and Council of 100; and with significant endowment support from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation and the San José Museum of Art Endowment Fund established by the Knight Foundation at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.