For the past decade, incredibly patient Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto has been creating the most intricate mazes from an unlikely medium. As a tribute to the life of his sister who died of cancer in 1994, Yamamoto spends hours upon hours using a plastic squeezy bottle to create beautiful labyrinthine patterns from household salt.
In an interview with Hi-Fructose, Yamamoto explains the use of salt in his memorial artwork.
Salt seems to possess a close relation with human life beyond time and space. Moreover, especially in Japan, it is indispensable in the death culture. After my sister’s death, what I began to do in order to accept this reality was examine how death was dealt with in the present social realm. I posed several related themes for myself such as brain death or terminal medical care and picked related materials accordingly. I then came to choose salt as a material for my work. This was when I started to focus on death customs in Japan.
… Drawing a labyrinth with salt is like following a trace of my memory. Memories seem to change and vanish as time goes by. However, what I sought for was the way in which I could touch a precious moment in my memories, which cannot be attained through pictures or writings.
Have a look at his salt labyrinths after the jump.