Bonsai Trees reimagined by Patrick Bergsma
Bonsai trees are busing through their ceramic pots in these beautiful sculptures by artist Patrick Bergsma. Bergsma is a dutch artist who has been working with Bonsai trees in his works for some time now with his website showing works as far back as 2007 and as new as 2020. When he began created these works he was inspired by two types of Japanese art, the art of growing the Bonsai trees, and the art known as Bonkei. Bonkei is an art form of creating a temporary or permanent three-dimensional depiction of a landscape in a miniature form.
In Patrick’s early works he started off with floating bonsai trees with mini futures standing or sitting on them. These early works carried a much darker atmosphere to them with the tress looking almost dead and the characters being as white as ghost. He later began to transition to lighter colors in his works while still holding onto the surreal aspects of these sculptures. At this period of his works is when he began to draw more inspiration from Bonkei as he started to incorporate houses, apartment buildings, and piles of cars into his works creating a more miniature landscape type sculpture.
As we move to 2020 Bergsma has yet again come at us with a new series of works, this time still including the Bonsai but in a much different fashion than before. This time instead of seeing these small suspended landscapes we see ceramic ornate vases being shattered into pieces by the bonsai tree busting through it. These works echo a common theme throughout all of Patrick’s works and that’s nature will always outlast man.
Source: The artist’s website.
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