Among the many skills of Vancouver-based Japanese artist Hine Mizushima is slow crafter, needlefelter and miniature collage artist. Her work often manifests itself in animals, sea life, parts of the human body and other curiosities of the natural world. For a recent exhibition in Tokyo she turned her eye, and needle, to the world of creepy and crawly insects, creating plush specimens of mosquitos, fleas and centipedes that would otherwise make our skin crawl.
giant mosquito
The larger-than-life insects were created for an exhibition at “Boris Zakkaten,” a shop in Tokyo’s Jingumae neighborhood owned by illustrator Yuko Higuchi. The plush and colorful sculptures, each ranging from between 8 to 12 inches, are often embellished by the artist’s own imagination, rendering them like something out of Alice’s Wonderland. We can’t say we have a high tolerance of insects, but these we’ll invite into our room any day.
The exhibition just ended but you can see more of Mizushima’s work on her Instagram account.
giant long ant
giant flea
squid
centipede
