Yuken Teruya transforms designer shopping bags from such retail outlets as Hermes, Tiffany’s, and Louis Vuitton into magical spaces filled with atmosphere and light. The subjects of these compositions are trees in an urban environment. He begins with a photograph of a specific tree in the city, and painstakingly cuts a detailed image of it from the side panels of the shopping bag. The negative spaces created by cutting permit light to enter and fall across the tree as if it were part of a Lilliputian stage set. While Teruya’s intention is not a specific critique of consumer culture as symbolized by glossy shopping bags from expensive stores, there is a poetic justice achieved by returning the tree to its original appearance, before it was pulped to create a shopping bag.
