20/04/2025
Today we are sharing 2025 Entry into the bonsai open and a little history:
Leyland Cypress by .v_bonsai
Species: Leyland Cypress “Castlewellan Gold”
Age: 6–10 years
Styled as bonsai: 1 year
Container: Handmade Australian ceramic
Stage: Tertiary Refinement
This tree started life as a struggling $3 nursery find with a straight trunk and poor roots. After a year of recovery, it was restyled in 2024 following inspiration from last year’s Bonsai Open. The trunk was bent into its current position, and the tree was repotted into its new handmade container.
The current design focuses on branch movement and form, using the simple trunk as a contrast. The foliage hangs slightly to suggest wind and snow, with moss placement reflecting harsher alpine conditions higher up.
Kalp is a Sydney-based bonsai artist who began in 2013. He has a strong interest in natives and conifers and is known for experimenting with structure, movement, and design over traditional styles. His goal is to create trees that reflect how they grow in nature—not just how they “should” look in bonsai.
For more here is information in his own words.
Artist Statement:
This piece has been created with the line & form of branches as the focal point rather than the trunk due to its relative simplicity.
Using complex lines in branching is also done to juxtapose the simple trunk which creates a visually engaging design.
The work aims to allude to environmental influences such as wind & snow in an alpine environment through features such as the tips of foliage hanging down slightly and shorter/sparse moss towards the top of the soil mound, referencing the increase in harsh conditions corresponding with altitude.
Age estimate: 6-10 years
Number of years owned: 3
Age as styled bonsai: 1 year
Species: Leyland Cypress "Castlewellan Gold"
Container: Australian handmade unknown artist
Substrate: 1:1:1 inorganic akadama, pumice, scoria
Stage of development: Tertiary Refinement
Kalp is a Sydney based bonsai artist who’s journey began in 2013 with a pair of old Port Jackson fig pot plants purchased from a garage sale. Ever since then he has pursued bonsai with a passion with a particular fascination for native conifers and aspirations towards multi decade field growing at a level never seen before in Australia.
Bonsai Ideology:
In the last few years his bonsai ideology and expression has shifted from a physical mimicry of the classic Japanese style to a more nuanced understanding of it which in his eyes is to reflect the way the trees present themselves in nature, which may not reflect the traditional conventions.
This has resulted in the pursuit of bonsai in a variety of structural forms that draw inspiration primarily from the ancient form of the tree in question rather than the orthodox bonsai route.
Utilising bonsai further as an artform rather than a craft is also something Kalp has begun to explore, aiming to convey concepts such as environmental influences in a more nuanced way, utilising allusion instead of representation where possible to allow the viewer to explore the work further and create curiosity.
Kalp has also recently begun more directly considering principles of design such as balance, rhythm, proportion and contrast when creating his works in hopes of discovering more ways to visually engage the viewer and further explore the work’s nuances which can be viewed in the tree above.
History of the tree:
Kalp first stumbled across the tree at his local nursery, completely straight trunk and struggling with a compromised root system and half dead for $3.
After its first emergency repot in 2022 he let it recover for a year before planting it at its current angle in a large garden sieve where it continued to build vigour.
The initial styling occurred right after the 2024 Bonsai Open after Kalp was inspired by the many trees he admired at the exhibition. This is when the straight trunk was first bent into its current position.
In preparation for the Open, the tree was repoted with inorganic soil into the handmade ceramic it currently sits in and the soil mass was held together with sphagnum moss and a temporary fly screen on the exterior.
The second styling occurred in late summer 2024 when the tree was given the more radical iteration which it has been displayed in. This styling focused more on engaging the viewer with line and form and consequently utilised a somewhat unorthodox structure.
The piece was then covered partially in moss and maintained carefully until the Open.
