ASUKA HISHIKI

2018 ASBA Diane Bouchier Artist Award for Excellence in Botanical Art 

by Scott O. Stapleton

When she was asked to send images of her work for the cover of this issue of The Botanical Artist, Asuka Hishiki sent none of her acknowledged masterpieces, not her large—28 ¼ x 36 ½ in—

breathtaking Black Pine Half-cascade Style Bonsai painting for which she won a gold medal at Out of the Woods: The Third New York Botanical Garden Triennial in 2017, nor the two works she exhibited at its Weird, Wild & Wonderful show in 2014, her monumental Heirloom Tomato (Kindhearted Monster) painting and her extraordinary Wasabi Root painting—another gold medal winner. The ones she did submit were very, very good, certainly in keeping with the high level of work done by other recipients of the Diane Bouchier award. But by themselves, they do not distinguish her from all the other very, very good botanical artists practicing their art today.

Her omission, if that is what it was, is instructive. She sent the work that characterized her calling—not to be a botanical artist per se, but to be an artist who could paint what she loved most, the enchanted world of nature round about her.

It was always thus. From the time she was very small, she loved looking through illustrated nature books. Japanese publishers excel at this kind of thing. “My heart beat fast happily to see all exotic (and also domestic) detailed images of plants, insects, mushrooms, and all the creatures on white background page after page!” (A portent of paintings to come?) There were visits to the natural science museum, as well, and actual plants—bonsai, in fact. In addition to the many he tended in his own yard, her grandfather kept several in her parents’ backyard. When she and her sister came home from school, there he would be, pruning and watering them. The experience left an indelible impression upon her, both for his devotion to the plants and, much later, for the quandary they provoked in her. Bonsai, it was said, were trees held in captivity against their will. They were not “natural.” It was years before she could make a satisfactory response. But when she did, she was set free.

In the meantime, there was also art, and lots of it. Her love for art—for making it and for marveling at what others had made—was irrepressible. Crayons, pencils, and paint were always at hand. And so were the artifacts of her aesthetically rich culture, her chopsticks included. Her grandparents praised everything she did; her father encouraged her to do more and better. She was 15 when she began to study drawing seriously.

Somewhere in this period she developed the habits that would later astound her Western friends, namely, her ability to sit at her desk for eight to 14 hours at a stretch, if need be, and paint. She already possessed an all-encompassing eye. But in these formative years, she also acquired the patience and the determination to make her vision real, even at the rate of one 3/0 brush stroke at a time. Curiously, exclamations about her work habits only puzzle her. “I do not know if I am a hard worker,” she says, “since I am doing just what I want to do. I do other things very slow, and need a good seven to eight hours sleep. But I do not need many things, just a good light and a stable desk and chair…and maybe a cup of coffee with milk and sugar once a while. It makes a place heaven.”

Footnote: We should not conclude hereby that Asuka is somehow oblivious to the cost of working so hard for so long. After finishing her devilishly difficult Wasabi Root painting, she vowed not to “fall in love with something so complicated any more…well, at least not for a while.”

Despite a certain nervousness on her parents’ part (“How will you make a living?!”), she enrolled at Kyoto City University of Arts, graduating in 1995 with a BFA, and in 1997 with an MFA in painting. KCUA is the oldest art university in Japan. Its graduates have become leading figures in contemporary art and music. She began thinking she was an abstract artist, with plants and other nature subjects, the basis for her abstractions. Somewhere along the way—she cannot say where and when—they became her subjects. Two artists she was familiar with helped pave the way. Itō Jakuchū (1716-1800), a bird-and-flower painter famous for a set of scroll paintings titled Colorful Realm of Living Beings, confirmed her love for nature in general. He also charted the course that became a touchstone for much of what she was to do. He painted “forgotten vegetables and half-dead leaves with holes in them munched by insects”—the world as it was, as she says, not perfect and yet still filled with beauty.

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) had a similar effect upon her. She also closed the gap between Asuka’s two great loves, art and nature. They did not have to dwell in separate realms. They could reside in one artist naturalist. Furthermore, Merian’s ground-breaking Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium—the result of a trip she made to Dutch Surinam to study the metamorphosis of butterflies—gave Asuka permission to explore the fantastic, magical world of transformation, or, as she has sometimes put it, no doubt with a smile on her face, “mashups.”

It is Cézanne, however, who truly deserves the credit for setting her free. When she discovered his saying, “Painting from nature is not copying the object, it is realizing one’s sensations,” she understood, finally, that copying per se was not only not the point—after all, where is the life in that?—it was technically impossible. “Seeing is not just mechanical, passive reaction, but rather active, trained action. The actual deed of seeing will be executed in our brain.”

Consequently, we may see “a carrot which looks like a lady with a hat.” And this “lady carrot has a little eccentric and humorous feeling, too—an elegant lady in a splendid outfit but with her hat upside down.” Or we may see leaves that “are not always green / but maybe these are occasionally in a golden rainbow color.” Or a kohlrabi “shining like an Egyptian treasure,” cacti masquerading as “little gangsters,” and heirloom tomatoes singing their do-re-mi’s. “I think she senses a personality in her subject that she is trying to portray,” Wendy Hollender has said. “I think it comes from her unique experience of interacting with her subject.”

And the conviction, we would add, about the power of art. By shifting the nature of her work from passive reception to active manipulation, Cézanne freed Asuka to impose her will on everything she took in. Standing in front of her Black Pine bonsai, she could now feel its hard-won dignity and not have to apologize. Quite the contrary! It was the very imposition of many wills like hers that permitted the tree to flourish—and flourish not only as a living work of art, but as a work whose beauty and strength would now live in her art. What’s more, the conviction did not have to breed arrogance or condescension. It could foster humility and awe. Before each new project, before each plant that speaks to her in the depths of her soul, she confesses “I always face mixture feeling of uncertain fear and hopeful excitement when I start painting, because you never know what kind of result you are getting until you finish the painting.” The burden to realize the vision remained. But now there was delight, as well.

So emboldened, Asuka traveled to the land of a great many very, very good botanical artists. She didn’t know she was one when she arrived. Indeed, she didn’t believe she knew anything about botanical art. But a friend in New York City saw her work and said she should apply to the then current ASBA show, and on her second attempt she was accepted. At the opening, when she confided to Robin Jess her ignorance, Robin gently assured her, “But you obviously know some!” And so she did. From there, she quickly found friends in the city, in Chicago, San Diego, at the Huntington, Kew, the Hunt, Wave Hill, the Denver Botanic Garden, and at the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kauai, who were happy to share their knowledge with her and just as happy to absorb the considerable amount of knowledge she had to offer. She could not believe her good fortune. She was now invited to wander through enchanted gardens with only the expectation that she create the very works of art she longs to create. Really! Was this heaven?

No, it’s botanical art as it should be practiced. Accolades are good, but the pleasure of making the art is the real prize.