Chrysanthemums #3

The third entry in Sugiura Kazutoshi's chrysanthemum series (kiku) applies his layered printmaking technique to a flower of enormous symbolic significance in Japan — the chrysanthemum is the Imperial flower, the emblem of the Chrysanthemum Throne, and one of the four noble plants of Japanese aesthetics alongside the plum, orchid, and bamboo. The kiku's complex, multilayered form — hundreds of narrow petals radiating from a central disk — is well-suited to Sugiura's accumulative printing process, each layer of silkscreen ink or gold leaf adding to a compositional richness that mirrors the flower's own physical complexity.