Yutaka Sone’s work encompasses painting, drawing, performance, sculpture, and video. From tiny crystal snowflakes to major works in marble, he is inspired by landscape; more specifically, snowy outdoor scenes. Many of his installations include live trees or plants, which, when interspersed with paintings, drawings, and sculptures, completely alter traditional gallery and museum exhibition spaces. Other prevalent themes are amusement and motion, which in past works have taken the form of roller coasters, the island of Hong Kong, and highway interchanges carved in pure white marble. In all of his works, Sone attempts to reveal the exquisite and the ephemeral – qualities that allude to our paradoxical relationship with nature.

It Seems Like Snow Leopard Island is thoroughly ambitious in both technique and scale. The fourteen foot-wide “island” is a self-contained environment with running rivers and live plants. Nesting within a curved pedestal, the sculpture seems to toy with issues of presentation and the idea of art as a living, changing organism. Intrigued by the habitat of the elusive snow leopard, Sone suggests that we reconsider – and subsequently celebrate – our fragile kinship with the outdoors.

There will be a brief gallery talk with the artist at 6:00 sharp on the night of the opening reception.