Ikebana Carried On by Cucumber

Tokyo ikebana artist Alexander Jyulian buried theater seats under rice stalks and grass. The space he filled was a Prada and Gentle Monster collaboration. By day Jyulian works at a plant industry company, and once he clocks out he becomes a "dark florist." He earned his Sogetsu school master certification at 27, a proper ikebana traditionalist. Yet what goes into his vessels is vegetables before flowers.

Sogetsu is one of several ikebana schools, known for the philosophy that materials other than flowers can be arranged. Jyulian carries that spirit forward with cucumbers, daikon, winter melon, watermelon, dandelion puffs, potato chips. His one principle is never to lean on the beauty of flowers. Thanks to that rule, everyday materials arrive in the gallery before any bloom does.

His titles are far from ordinary. Absurd names like Return of the Dandelion Knights, The Future of the Japanese Economy Arranged in Flowers, Mushroom Love Battle are attached to each work. Every piece comes with a caption describing an invented world. Jyulian calls his own aesthetic "dreamcore." It is a style that erases the line between the surreal and the mundane.

Sogetsu has long held that if there were no plants on Earth, one could arrange stones instead. Jyulian is translating that spirit with contemporary materials. The last line of his Instagram bio, written in Arabic, ends like this. "It is just a flower shop." The words are humble, but what he arranges is anything but flowers.