Botanical Illustration
in Tokyo

Lucanus cervus · Fiurdelin · exhibited at BUG Exhibition, Boji hair+gallery, Tokyo 2026

There are moments in this work that arrive without warning. In March 2026, two of my pieces were selected for a botanical illustration Tokyo exhibition — or rather, two simultaneous exhibitions at the same gallery, on separate floors, in the same week. My Amanita muscaria and my Lucanus cervus, both chosen by Boji hair+gallery in Shibuya. When Minwu confirmed both had been accepted, I read the message twice. Then a third time. Then I made coffee and read it again.

In March 2026, Fiurdelin was selected for two simultaneous exhibitions at Boji hair+gallery in Shibuya, Tokyo — キノコの惑星 (Mushroom Planet) and BUG Exhibition — showing an Amanita muscaria and a Lucanus cervus respectively. Both ran 21–29 March 2026, Fiurdelin credited as an artist from Italy.

A Tokyo Gallery
That Chooses by Feel

Boji hair+gallery is one of those Tokyo spaces that earns its reputation quietly, without announcing itself. Tucked into Shibuya, it runs a hair salon and a gallery in the same building — an arrangement that already tells you something about how it sees the world: that beauty and art are not separate concerns, and that the people who care about one probably care about the other. The exhibitions here are not assembled by volume or algorithm. They are built around a subject, a mood, a shared instinct about what deserves to be in a room together.

What Minwu and the Boji team do — and do with remarkable consistency — is find work that belongs. Not just skilled work. Work that fits the story they are telling that season. In March 2026, that story was told across two simultaneous exhibitions: キノコの惑星 (Mushroom Planet) on the B1 floor, entirely devoted to fungi; and BUG Exhibition on the second floor, given over to insects. To be selected for either would have been a privilege. To find both Amanita muscaria and Lucanus cervus accepted — on separate floors, in separate curatorial contexts, the same week — was something I had not imagined when I made the submissions. I am genuinely grateful.

キノコの惑星 · Mushroom Planet

BUG Exhibition · visual by @kitaoojitsukasa

Amanita muscaria —
Drawing Against the Cliché

Amanita muscaria is probably the most illustrated fungus on the planet. The red cap with white spots has been reproduced so many times in popular culture that the actual biology has become almost invisible behind its own image. When I started this drawing, I was not trying to make the familiar strange. I was trying to ignore the familiar entirely and look at the organism.

The illustration shows two specimens — a mature fruiting body and a smaller juvenile alongside it. The volva at the base of the stipe is visible in both, along with the remnants of the partial veil. These are not decorative details. They are the structural features that distinguish Amanita from superficially similar species, and they belong in any honest botanical illustration. Showing this work at a Tokyo exhibition felt like a test of exactly that honesty — whether an image built on scientific observation could hold its own in a room of contemporary art.

“I was not trying to make the familiar strange. I was trying to ignore the familiar entirely and look at the organism.”

Amanita muscaria · キノコの惑星 · Boji hair+gallery, Tokyo, March 2026 · Photo: @minwu_7167

Fungi occupied botanical illustration for centuries before mycology became its own discipline. The visual language of depicting them — the cross-section, the spore print, the relationship between cap and stem — was developed by botanical draughtsmen working well outside what we would now consider their field. That tradition is still present in how I approach any fungal subject, including this one.

Lucanus cervus —
Scientific Illustration at the Tokyo Exhibition

The BUG Exhibition on the second floor had a different atmosphere — darker, more graphic, the kind of light that suits chitin and compound eyes. My Lucanus cervus was shown here, framed in black against a textured plaster wall.

Lucanus cervus has been illustrated in European natural history since the seventeenth century. The mandibles — the feature that gives the species both its common name and its scientific one — are what every draughtsman has to solve. They read easily as a silhouette. Getting the articulation right, the toothed inner edges, the precise curvature relative to the head capsule, is the work that happens slowly, at the drawing table, with reference material spread out.

Lucanus cervus · BUG Exhibition · Boji hair+gallery, Tokyo, March 2026 · Photo: @minwu_7167

The illustration shows a dorsal view — the iridescent dark green of the pronotum, the deep chestnut red of the elytra, the black legs with their tarsal spines. Colour in entomological illustration is not decoration. It is information. Lucanus cervus has specific colouration that distinguishes it from related species, and the illustration records that.

What Tokyo
Means for This Work

The history of botanical illustration is a European story, mostly — the great herbaria, the natural history expeditions, the publishing houses that produced the folios. But Japan has its own extraordinary parallel tradition: centuries of observational natural history art running through woodblock printing and into some of the most meticulous technical draughtsmanship the twentieth century produced. These two worlds do not often meet face to face. When they do, something interesting happens.

Having botanical illustration work chosen for a Tokyo exhibition — not through a broad international open call, but through direct submission, direct acceptance, direct curatorial decision — means something specific. It means someone looked at a stag beetle drawn in Italy and a fly agaric drawn from careful observation, and decided both of them had a place in Shibuya in March 2026. That is not a small thing. I am deeply thankful to Minwu and the whole Boji hair+gallery team for the care, the warmth, and the genuine seriousness with which they run their programme. If you are in Shibuya and want to see what thoughtful independent curation looks like, their exhibition schedule is always worth checking — and their Instagram is one of the nicest feeds in Tokyo’s art scene.

The Living Canvas, Fiurdelin’s book on the history and practice of botanical illustration, traces exactly this kind of encounter between scientific rigour and artistic judgement across centuries of the genre. The same instinct that made these drawings is the one this book tries to describe. And the same instinct — I like to think — is what Boji hair+gallery recognised when they put them on the wall.

A Japanese-language version of this article is available on botanical.art:
日本語版はこちら →

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