Mike Pollard and Rika Yamasaki, the artist duo behind MR Studio London, blend their individual artistic journeys into a shared practice deeply rooted in their surroundings. Their work evolves from a careful collection of materials found in their environment, reflecting a thoughtful approach to reducing waste and examining sustainable practices. Through their art, Mike and Rika document their habitat and create poetic interpretations of their relationship with the landscape, offering a unique perspective on both their immediate world and broader environmental concerns.

Mike, you have a background in working with natural materials like wood and clay, while Rika, your art often explores themes of femininity and fantasy. How do you both mix these different influences in your current projects with MR Studio London?

Whilst we each came from a different starting point & with different methods of production we both slowly converged into the same settings & places of inspiration. Working in the natural world for Rika came into focus through an exploration of fairy tales with their often idealized woodland settings as a background to the narrative. Whereas for Mike it was led by applying process & labor to accentuate the simplicity & tactility of materials amidst an increasingly mechanized state of modernity. As we worked together there was an increasing sense of fondness in using materials connected to domesticity, our local environment & in finding a place that exists as a reflective antithesis to a more consumption based media landscape.

(Left) 'Untitled Haze, Dandelion Ghosts', 2021

(Right) 'Untitled Haze, Grass Patchwork', 2024

Art is an expression that often emerges from isolation or loneliness for many artists. What is it like to create together? What are the aspects of this teamwork that you find challenging or that you think make things easier?

It certainly felt more isolated or lonely when working individually: Rika – having been diagnosed with ADHD had too many thoughts / words / ideas always jumping around and it was harder to organize those in isolation. Mike – diagnosed with ASD struggled with a sense in his work of becoming lost in processes for the sake of processes, obsessing over details and losing focus on the need for an outcome. Discovering our relative strengths/weaknesses allowed us to create and adopt roles as part of a collaborative duo. Creating together is a balance where Rika has so many desires for certain outcomes without necessarily the want to engage in meticulous & physical methodologies- which is the process that Mike needs to find purpose & instill his own sense of value in a project (without necessarily having that preconceived idea of what the outcome might be).

What inspired you to use pressed flowers in your art, and how do they fit into your overall artistic vision?

Using pressed flowers was a want from Rika to explore an idealized, nostalgic childhood memory in her work. This idea quickly became coupled with a more general ideological frustration of wanting to create whilst avoiding the guilt that comes with the inevitable material waste of making art. This was something possible for us to experiment with as artists living in a small rented flat and was really the beginning of our increasingly collaborative journey. A desire to press flowers led to Mike’s involvement in learning the process, developing our set up – and this quickly became an important source of production for us. It was a way to (at least on a surface level) avoid reliance on mass produced resources, we could grow or find our materials, connect to our surroundings on a more ecological level which was something we really needed in our practice. Pressed flowers became an interesting discourse for us as there was a play on the more classic gender roles associated with flower pressing and in the positioning between domesticity, labor and worth. This became part of our identity as collaborative artists and we held on to this as something of a challenge in terms of how pressed flowers were not perceived with much value in the fine art world compared to more traditionally accepted and easily categorized methodologies.

'Untitled Haze, May Garden', 2021

Sustainability plays a big role in your art. How do you keep that balance between being eco-conscious and staying creative? What are some of the key ways you ensure your work stays sustainable?

Sustainability isn’t so much a limiting factor in staying creative for us but it does provide a focus. It creates parameters to work within and feels like a journey of understanding in this sense so we keep looking for ways to push this to the front of our developments.

The self reflective unease of production will always be present but the question we tend to ask ourselves is how can we utilize the resources that we have already accumulated without being gratuitous or un-ecological. The biggest ongoing challenge, despite growing or finding the focal materials we use, is not to keep falling back into using petrochemicals, specifically plastics, as a way of combining and fixing/preserving these elements. It can make things harder to avoid these conveniences but the challenge of seeking alternatives is as much where the creativity lies. We try to be engaged with the feelings of tension – between nature and transience & the act of making something existing purely and permanently for itself.

How do your individual stories and backgrounds inform the themes and messages in your work?

More than cultural narratives, we realize our personal journeys with mental health have had a big influence on how we filter the meanings in our work. We come from very different cultural backgrounds with Mike from Leeds, UK and Rika from Osaka, Japan but with both of us similarly receiving a formal diagnosis of neurodivergence later in life (ASD & ADHD, respectively) there were similarities in how we approached and struggled navigating our lived experiences in combination with existing as artists. It does feel that in order to make work we have to be able to achieve the basic day to day goals in life first – at times this has completely weighed us down and we have had to really find a way to live in a way that is ideologically fitting to achieve space for this. This ultimately is what goes into our work: the creation of a way to slow down, to make space for a feeling of purpose and belonging in our environment – one which often feels challenging and something we often need to separate from. Internal conflict has been a motif for us in this regard. Having an innate desire for order or sequence whilst craving freeness and fluidity. Wanting to control everything around us but finding solace amidst nature. Needing to create but feeling guilt to do so. The goal has been to accept and work at finding awareness of our inner conflicts in a positive or creative way.

What’s a recent simple or small thing in your life that has unexpectedly inspired or delighted you?

Over the past few years Rika has been increasingly into fermentation – baking bread, making vegan yogurt, miso, vegan kimchi, pickled vegetables etc. We both found the process of fermentation fascinating. Turning simple ingredients, in the right conditions, with enough time into changed forms that interact with their surroundings in such interesting ways. Recently discovering we could make fruit vinegar- which is such a simple process- was especially exciting given it is peak blackberry foraging season. Already this is a highlight of the season, blackberries being one of the most locally abundant & widely accessible sources of wild food but we are now in the process of turning some of the most overripe blackberries into vinegar (which currently smells like a deep red wine). As a last point of utilizing this resource we experimented making pigment/dye made from the same batch of blackberries. We’ll see in time how this color and technique develops. Throughout these acts the idea of slowing down, being mindful of the seasons & engaging with the passing of time feels so relatable & interconnected with our work.

(Left) Untitled Haze, Diamond Patchwork, 2023

(Right) Untitled Haze, Tulips (Set of 8),2024

Is there a personal ritual or habit that helps you stay connected to your creativity and keep your artistic vision vibrant?

Starting with a phase of expansion our creative flow runs in opposing parts. Expanding generally by collecting, by hoarding bits from walks: sticks, dried grass, a clump of moss, half a thistle head that looks like a hedgehog – being surrounded by little things that may or may not be used in our work but were inspirational in a moment. This is then followed by a period of focus. The collecting gets to a point where the bits get too much, space becomes limited, clarity starts to wane as to why all these things are waiting for attention. Focusing on more specific elements then becomes so much more meaningful & we start to edit back our collections and pull out the specific strands that have stayed relevant to our work. This flow of working has become a cyclical habit that we have each been through a number of times, for us it provides the scope for change with a breakpoint to reassess & question where we are heading.

Untitled Haze, 2020

Is there a new project on the horizon that has you especially excited?

For a long time we’ve been wanting to make work with a greater sense of sculpturality but have often struggled with the time and space to develop these works. Working with patch-worked elements has allowed us to play with the position between preserving something that existed 3 dimensionally and re-injecting a sense of life with new seam lines that hold the whole piece into a specific form. This may sound small but we are quite excited with the potential for viewing the materials we make in a more liberated sense- it feels a little bit beyond creating a static and finished piece of work and more like something that could continue growing beyond its own boundaries.