"Wabi-sabi is simply the feeling of my daily life of creating. Each day I spend a significant amount of time catching its essence of tranquility, harmony, beauty and imperfection through shooting photos, making paper and cyanotype. I embrace the condition of gampi tree fiber, spring water and sunlight changing all the time. One day I realised that being surrounded by abundant nature has changed my mentality. I am getting to understand my imperfections."
Mika Horie
Horie Mika is a Japanese photographic artist who focuses on creating cyanotypes on paper made by herself. Trees, water and light are the main elements that Horie uses to create her artworks. The unique photographic work of Mika Horie taps into sources of alternative printing techniques going back to the earliest days of photography. She focuses on paper making and cyanotype printing, which was developed in 1842 and became popular as a low-cost reproduction technique for drawings, also known as blueprinting. Soon after it was invented the English botanist and photobook pioneer Anna Atkins (1799-1871) used the process to make contact prints of British algae.
Horie's way of printmaking is sustainable, from the laborious custom paper production to the imprint of images. Whenever she disapproves of a photograph she can return it to the natural surroundings from where its material components originate. In 2013 Horie moved into a mountain house in Ishikawa Prefecture, where she finds her studio surrounded by forests and fresh water springs. From the bark of the gampi trees surrounding her home, Horie harvests the fibers which she then turns into pulp and paper.