Having discovered and experimented with wood carving, also known as Ukiyo-e, while studying traditional Japanese painting at the Tokyo Art University in Japan, Mr Kobayashi found that wood relief techniques accentuate the expressions and details of subjects more clearly compared to the two-dimensional quality of traditional paintings and images.

Ukiyo-e, a traditional art form developed in Japan since the 17^th century, features strongly in Mr Kobayashi’s series of works to express his concepts and debates about the impact of humans and their modern lifestyles on primitive labour for traditional farming. Here, Mr Kobayashi focuses on carving the anatomies of the human bodies as if they were a part of nature. Upon closer scrutiny, his works reveals the symbiotic relationship between human and nature. Both are inherently and intrinsically linked, for humans rely on nature for sustenance, and nature, too, requires the labour of humans to irrigate, sow and harvest the lands.