PROJECT: Ashes to Ashes #1 & #2

Moko Fukuyama created Ashes to Ashes #1 & #2 while in residence at STONELEAF RETREAT in 2022. The works were part of the ‘On the Grounds’ exhibition, which was curated by River Valley Arts Collective’s founder, Alyson Baker, and organized in collaboration with the Al Held Foundation in Boiceville, NY. After the exhibition concluded Ashes to Ashes #1 & #2 were installed at STONELEAF in November 2022.

Fukuyama approached this work like a mortician, painting dead tree parts to resuscitate the vitality they once possessed, albeit in an eerily altered state. The sculptures have iridescent hues reminiscent of the emerald ash borer beetle that is notorious for decimating Hudson Valley forests. Jewel-like yet macabre, they are placed in the site line of a dead ash tree, still standing but devoid of life. Fukuyama’s attention to both the emptiness and the visible decay within landscape, along with her material and color references result in a poetic meditation on mortality.

MOKO FUKUYAMA was an artist-in-residence in partnership with the River Valley Arts Collective and Al Held Foundation in 2022.