Yutaka Sone

Japanese artist Yutaka Sone's work explores the tension between realism and perfection. Using painting, sculpture, installation, film, and performance, Sone's art addresses his desire to define "indefinite domains." Often he chooses his subjects from actual locations—Hong Kong, a roller coaster, a mountain range, the Los Angeles highway, a rainforest—then recreates the environment using marble, crystal, or natural materials, reminding the viewer of the relationship between the natural and constructed world.

The meticulous attention to structure in Sone's art—from his crystal snowflakes to his marble Highway Junction series—can be attributed to his master's degree in architecture. Representing Japan in the 2003 Venice Biennale, along with Motohiko Odani, Sone created video, sculpture, and drawings of "unreachable places," modeled on actual sites but not completely grounded in reality.

Click here to a take a close look at Yutaka Sone's extaordinary naturalism.