Yuken Teruya (1973) - Notice-Forest

Yuken Teruya (1973), Notice-Forest (Mc Donald), 2005.
(The tree stands between blocks 18 and 19 on Fifth Avenue, New York.)

Paper bag, silhouette papercut, 12 x 17 x 27 cm; certificate signed by the artist and a description of the work from the gallery attached.

Provenance: 2005 for exhibition at Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Germany; Murata & Friends, Berlin, Germany; Private collection, Berlin, Germany.

The artist about the "Notice Forest Project":

This project challenged me to create the image of a forest out of a paper product. The idea behind this project was inspired by Aristotle’s philosophy of nature, which states that “Everything in nature has its end function and nothing is without purpose.” An example of this can be seen when a leaf emerges on a plant and the stem twists, thereby allowing sunlight to reach it. This adaptation allows us to see the functional aspect of plants in nature.
Aristotle also claimed that the development from potentiality to actuality is one of the most important things to learn from nature. An acorn, for example, carries within it the potential to become an oak tree, and a full-grown tree is an actualized form of this potential. I started working from this idea, and it occurred to me that a paper product still retains a trace of what it used to be when it was part of the tree and the forest.

Biography
Yuken Teruya (born 1973 in Okinawa, Japan) is an internationally renowned contemporary artist, known for his finely carved paper sculptures and installation works. Teruya combines traditional techniques with everyday materials such as paper shopping bags, pizza boxes, or toilet paper, from which he derives organic forms like trees, plants, and landscape fragments. His works reflect themes such as consumer society, environmental destruction, identity, and global culture. Teruya studied at Tama Art University in Tokyo and completed his MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He lives and works today in Berlin, Okinawa, and New York. His works have been shown in major museums and galleries worldwide, including the Guggenheim Museum New York, MoMA PS1, Saatchi Gallery London, and numerous biennales.