Shinri Tezuka and the Art of the Sugar Sculpture

At his two Tokyo stores, 29-year-old Shinri Tezuka is breathing new life into the art of amezaiku, or sugar sculpting. Popular in the 19th century, the practice now has less than 100 practitioners throughout Japan.

Amezaiku requires minutious agility as well as a high pain threshold. In order to create these edible sculptures, Tezuka must plunge his hands into a sugar paste heated to 90°C. His fingers are unavoidably burnt by the mizuame, a sugar syrup composed of rice or potato starch. With the help of small chisel, Tezuka cuts away a small ball and places it on a skewer; so begins a race against time, working quickly before the ball solidifies once again. He has just five minutes to sculpt his chosen form, be it a toad, a fish or a simple oval which might become an element within a miniature landscape.  The artist then brings his work to life, with a small brush he applies multiple layers of translucent colourant with incredible nuance for such a small surface. All together the process takes less than half an hour.

While there seem to be various origin stories for the first of these small sculptures, they appear to have emerged during the Heian period between the 8th and 12th centuries, created as confectionary offerings to leave in temples. However it was at the end of the Edo period in the 19th century that amezaiku became more wide spread, consumed by families and children alike.

During this time, these sugar sculptures were integral parts of any street festival. The ultimate pastime, they were part of the arsenal of itinerant artisans, travelling from town to town, bringing joy to passers by with their offerings and their amusing stories. Much to the pleasure of bemused onlookers, they would work with a straw in their mouth, blowing sugar as one would blow glass. They would create magical creatures, from the beautiful to the ordinary, all of them almost too good to eat.

During the 1970s, the Japanese government banned the technique due to hygiene restrictions and limited the sale of nomad nosh, and so the practice of amezaiku became reified. Tezuka for his part discovered the art at a festival, deciding then on to make a career of it. Over recent years he was able to drum up interest once again, using social media to engage with an intrigued audience, overjoyed by the meeting of food, animals and creativity.

The young artisan’s creations however are quite unique. They are decidedly distant from any culture of kawaii, favouring realist, sometimes frightening animals like this translucent squid or this wide-mouthed scorpion fish. Apparently the easiest form to create is a rabbit, yet the possibilities for complexity are endless. Like a fashion designer, Tezuka creates limited edition sculptures according to seasons.