Mai Horayama was born in 1992 in Gifu, Japan. Mai graduated from Tama Art University in 2017 with a Bachelor’s degree in sculpture. She is also a top graduate of the graduate school at the same university in 2020. She is a member of the Japan Artists Federation.

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Using steel as a material, she creates works on the theme of “Things that are ever-changing and never-changing in the course of time". She is creating steel sculptures reminiscent of drawings in the margins of space, using a unique method of expression  through gas welding and fusing, mainly using the flammable gases acetylene and oxygen. 

The steel is cut by hand cutting with gas fusing. The steel scrap generated when cutting is called "slag". The "slag" is then melted together by gas welding, and the joining technique creates a free and flexible shape.

She also creates drawings using metallic materials such as steel powder, steel rust, gold powder, and gold leaf on Mino Washi paper, a traditional craft in her hometown of Gifu Prefecture. She creates a space that shows the ephemerality of splendor, where the contradiction of decay and splendor are gently blended together.

 

Mai is pursuing the possibility “a new value creation" in metal sculpture by attempting to fuse Japanese tradition and innovation, expression and technology.