The Red Blossom

Aluminium wire at 1 mm, stainless steel, and a pot made for this piece. Over 1,500 metres of wire, worked into one continuous structure. Nothing in the tree was bought finished, and nothing in it was cut.

Wire goes in as a bundle and comes out as a tree. Every branch tip is already there in that first bundle — which means the whole shape is committed before the first bend, and cannot be corrected later. That constraint is why there will not be a second one.

First — the armature. Every wire that will end as a branch tip is already in this bundle.

Second — the skeleton. Splitting and twisting down to the finest twigs. The silhouette is finished before a single leaf exists.

Third — the canopy. Over 450 clusters, one at a time, until the crown closes. This is where most of the 315 hours went.

A living bonsai of this stature is a standing appointment. Water, prune, repot, read the seasons — and one forgotten fortnight in July can end forty years of it. That fragility is the whole point of the form, and it is also why most people admire one and never keep one.

This one asks for a dry room and the occasional dusting. That is the entire contract. There is a practical side to it as well: a living tree of this class is a customs problem — plant health paperwork, quarantine, seasonal risk, sometimes no legal route at all. This one is metal, so it simply travels as art.

• Certificate and seal

  Numbered, signed, with a holographic seal bonded to the document.

• Entry in the register

  Recorded from day one and transferred to the new owner on any future sale.

• Delivered and installed in person by the artist, anywhere in the world

  Roth brings it himself and sets it up with you. Never freight, never a courier.

• Care for the life of the work

  If it ever needs attention it goes back to the hands that made it. Wire can be reset. A living tree cannot.