About

This website is the home of all things
made collaboratively
by Mike Pollard and Rika Yamasaki;
collectively MR Studio London.

Photograph by Anna Jacobsen

About Us

 

The things we create as MR Studio London are an extension of ideas that relate to our work as artists over the years and has naturally developed out of our current home and surroundings in London.

Before starting MR Studio London we both had a background in Fine Art and worked separately across different fields, exploring photography, sculpture, drawing and installation. Rika’s work as an artist connected to ideas of femininity & subjectivity; using the female form as well as elements of fairytales- in their often natural and idealistic woodland settings- to explore an idea of fantasy or female stereotype. Mike had a more sculptural background in his work with a love for exploring pure/natural materials such as wood, chalk and clay- using process/repetition to find beauty within the isolation of small and simple elements. As we began to work together collaboratively we found there was space for a coupling of both our passions and interests the more we worked directly in the environment.

Our work now generally comes from closely watching and interacting with nature as it subtly changes and grows in the area around our home. Selecting and rearranging elements of flowers/foliage that we find, playing with scale and combinations, the work we create becomes a documentation of place and time as well as a poetic way to work with the landscape. We love especially to find inspiration or materials in unexpected cracks and corners- like flowers growing out of crumbling walls or bits of the forest creeping into neglected alleyways. It feels really rewarding to turn something that would be mostly overlooked into something beautiful that can be kept and cherished.

About Materials

 

Given what we do sustainability is really integral to our work, especially with our reliance on nature as a raw material and working so much in our local environment it’s so important that we can work, grow and help maintain our surroundings. We try not to be wasteful in our practice which extends through ecological printing processes (including any third party printers we work with), the way we source, limit or recycle our use of materials as well as being incredibly selective and respectful with the flowers/foliage that we collect.

Paper features throughout what we do and is the base material for nearly all our work. We are constantly learning about the environmental impacts of various papers and change the papers we use to be the most ecological and suitable that we can find. We try to make sure that the papers we use are all vegan friendly and contain no gelatine or animal products in their making as well as balancing the relative costs of energy/resources needed in manufacture, processing and distribution. We use a range of different papers across our work and this is something we will keep considering and adapting as we go.