"Weathering" Mosaic by Toyoharu Kii

A leader of the cross-cultural craft resurgence, Japan-based artist Toyoharu Kii creates his intricate mosaics with hand-cut Italian marble and smalti, Venetian glass made by the same Italian family for over 400 years. Using traditional Italian techniques, Kii’s art is nonetheless modern. Highlighting the involved and technical art of mosaic-making, his works are monochromatic, abstract, and highly textured.

Entitled "Weathering,” this marble mosaic work is Kii’s vision of how the process of time erodes even the greatest of civilizations. Edged with a broken pattern suggesting the restless action of the sea, the composition features a single stone subsumed by a desert of carefully placed tesserae.