Surrounded by flowers from a very young age, the decision to become a floral designer was an obvious one for Japanese Hideyuki Niwa. At the age of 20 he graduated from Tokyo's flower college and in the same year he got employed by Kamon Flower Gate Co Ltd; a great and fruitful environment for an artist eager to learn and develop. At present Hideyuki Niwa is manager and chief floral designer of FLOREAL OPEQE Marunouchi, a company organizing wedding ceremonies at hotels in Japan and abroad. He often takes part in competitions to challenge himself and tries creating and photographing a new design every day to get a thorough understanding of the characteristics of flowers and their possibilities. Hideyuki teams up with his brother Sinji in his quest to create a new sort of flower design - combining flowers with other materials to bring the designs and floral arrangements to the next level, hence the name of their partnership 'Mixture'. His classic, linear stye and minimalist expression with careful placement of plant materials, quintessential characteristics of the Japanese aesthetic concept wabi sabi, rightfully won him the Bronze Leaf in the 2010/2011 edition and the Gold Leaf in the 2012/2013 edition of Stichting Kunstboek's prestigious International Floral Art.