Manabu Ikeda: Flowers from the Wreckage

A large-format frame for Manabu Ikeda’s Rebirth, designed with Kasko Frameworks to gallery standards — modular, transportable, and fitted with integrated lighting.

Daly Co. collaborates with Kasko Frameworks to design and produce custom wood frames for clients seeking solutions beyond standard offerings. One such project was for the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, BC, who requested a frame to house the delicate and intricately detailed work Rebirth by Japanese artist Manabu Ikeda.

The piece was the centrepiece of Flowers From the Wreckage, Manabu’s first solo exhibition in Canada. The frame had to highlight the extraordinary level of detail in the work and be engineered for disassembly and shipping to future exhibitions in the U.S.

Our challenge was to scale the fine detailing of small-format frames to a much larger size, while designing a modular system that could be assembled with minimal tools. The structural framework had to align perfectly so the plexiglass and cover panels could be installed with tight tolerances, maintaining the precision necessary for close viewing while protecting the work.

We also integrated a controllable lighting system around all inner edges of the frame, allowing light to wash gently across the artwork and create the effect of it floating within the frame.

The result was both functional and deeply refined, and the collector described it as “the most beautiful frame they had ever seen.” This frame was disassembled and shipped to Chicago along with the work for the next exhibition.