Raku Inoue’s art is a delightful combination of flora and fauna. What he does is unique. He arranges a colorful variety of flower petals and leaves to create animals, birds, and insects. And it’s no digital art. He meticulously selects real flowers and leaves, arranges them in the form of animals, birds, and insects.
Raku’s creations include animals, such as a llama, orangutan, turtle, etc., birds, such as a parrot, and insects, like a butterfly, spider, beetle and many more. After he finishes his arrangements, he photographs them and puts them up on his website, Instagram and other social platforms.
Raku, who is based in Montreal, Canada, was born in Tokyo, Japan. He left his original country with his family when he was only nine years old. This relocation exposed him to cultures of both the countries and this exposure influenced his art.
Although Raku is gaining fame for using flora in his animal, bird and insect art, he has also experimented with various mediums to express his creativity, such as drawing, painting, sculpting, and photography. He has also delved in sculpting with polymer clay, tried his hand at digital photography and learned Photoshop.
However, it was nature that inspired Raku the most. He was smitten by the beauty that abounds in nature in the form of raw materials. His masterly use of flower petals stems and leaves to create a variety of creatures resulted in creating his Natura series. He continues to add to it with his new creations.
What ignites Raku’s imagination is the material that nature provides. For example, the natural curvatures and shapes of flower petals and leaves help him to visualize the subjects of his creation, whether it’s an owl’s fluffy belly made from densely packed petals or an elephant made from dual-colored leaves.
On behance.net, Raku states, “I like to experiment with multiple media, but my works are usually based on polymer clay, digital photography, and photoshop. The challenge is to keep on expanding my creativity.”
Raku considers himself lucky to have collaborated with people on many different platforms. This has had a huge influence on him in developing a taste for multidisciplinary art. It has also taught him to view and approach each project from a different perspective.
Raku’s art is not only for appreciating, but can be bought too from his website, where he offers images from his Natura Insect series.
Raku Inoue: Website | Instagram
