Macabre Memories, Vividly Preserved.
This amazing work by Japanese artist Iori Tomita involves a lot of discarded marine wildlife, some brightly colourful dye and some very impressive results. Tomita first began this art while working as a fisherman, but as his skill and knowledge progressed he graduated into art full time. His collection ‘shinsekai [toumei hyouhon]’ (‘new world transparent specimens’) is a combination of many techniques and more than a couple hours of intricate work. First he dissolves the bodies using an enzyme, stopping the process after the flesh becomes translucent but before it loses its shape. The bones and cartilage dyed purple and blue respectively. His work also has a moral dimension, Tomita expressing his outrage at the mountains of food that is wasted each year
I included a video featurette too, which was the only way I could convince myself that these were real and not just some computer generated models.
Pictures courtesy of designboom.com
About the author: Conor Hughes works as a Marketing Executive at Life Science Recruitment