Blossoming II (2011)

Over the last few years I have composed on the theme of ’flowers’. My grandfather was a master of Ikebana (the traditional Japanese art of flower arrangement); Zeami, the original practioner of the traditional Japanese theatre form Nō, considered the best performer a ’flower’. The deep roots of flowers in Japanese aesthetics and spirituality led me to them as the subject of this work. The flower I’m imagining in this work is a lotus, which is the symbolic flower of Buddhism. The flower and I are one; the blossoming of the flower represents my shedding of my skin, my self-discovery.