Light is very important to my sculptures. Also the marks left by the chisel and the shadows casted. These are the distinguishing trademark features of my works.

Penang is a small island, in Malaysia, blessed with abundant, huge trees. Trees provide clean air and crystal water for us to enjoy so this work has a bigger message as well, an environmental one.

There is not many wood outdoor sculptures around. Wood is not as durable as other materials but the timber I am working with presently is recycled , extracted from dams, aged and steel- hard, harder than all my previous works. It will probably last for 100 years but even after the sculpture no longer exists; the memory which remains is much more important. There is beauty in the ephemeralness of objects, just like with humans.

With brilliant forest, I am thinking of 100 odd trees though the number has no special significance, the mass or volume would certainly elicit a profound, emotional impact on the senses just like the monumental sculptures that are around whom no one knows the reason they are erected in the first place.

(Translation by Akiko Kume)

Born in Shimokita, Japan, Katsumi Mukai focuses his art around the flow of natural elements that surrounds the immediate environment. His installation at Malihom, Brilliant forest, is inspired by these inherent characteristics, of light filtering thro the overcast of trees creating a myriad of changing patterns and colors throughout the day and night; and of sounds captured when the wind whistles thro. Kaze (wind) is a composition which echoes successively throughout his works with twisted forms depicting winds and chiseled incurvated grooves emulating ripples in water.