Standing 5.8 metres high and covering an area of 25 square metres, Elements and Being is the largest public artwork by Japanese artist Akio Makigawa. Like many of Makigawa’s public works, Elements and Being invites viewers to move within and around it.
The marble structures also invite viewers to consider their spiritual relationship to place based on the elements of water, earth, air, fire and spirit. Makigawa’s combination of art with life and spirituality draws on Japanese cultural traditions, though he never studied art in Japan. He arrived in Australia 1974 and once claimed that he sometimes felt as though he was floating in the Pacific Ocean between Australia and Japan.
Commissioned by the Adelaide and Stations Environment Redevelopment (ASER) Property Trust in 1988, this work is made from black Maquino marble, white Carrara marble and lead inlays. The black and white palette is a reference to night and day. The 5 key elements of the work resemble the 5 points of the Southern Cross, a reflection of what the work is about: ‘directionality, orientating yourself’.
