/ 2026 / Fine Art / Still Life

• Prize
  Honorable Mention
• Photographer
  Kyle Hoffmann, Australia
• Date of Photograph
  21 / 02 / 2026
• Studio
  Kyle Hoffmann

Yatsude forms part of an ongoing series examining the relationship between naming, belief, and observation. The Japanese paper plant (Fatsia japonica) derives its common name from the Japanese word yatsude, meaning “eight hands,” yet the leaves rarely conform, consistently producing seven or nine lobes rather than eight.

Yatsude occupies a space between botanical document and cultural symbol. The work attends to the instability revealed by the gap between what things are called and what they are, considering how meaning persists even when observation resists categorisation.