Takahiro Iwasaki: Reflection Model (Itsukushima)

Takahiro Iwasaki is recognized as one of Japan’s leading contemporary artists. He creates intricately detailed models that reinterpret iconic historical buildings and contemporary Japanese cityscapes. His most acclaimed works are from the Reflection model series that focuses on Japanese sacred buildings and the reflections they cast in the water that surrounds them.

Playing with this striking visual relationship, Iwasaki constructs precise three-dimensional models that are suspended in a way that combines the building with its illusionary reflection to create a single, complete form. Commissioned by the NGV in 2014, the largest work in the Reflection model series takes as its subject the Shinto shrine of Itsukushima, located on Miyajima Island in Japan’s Inland Sea.