American artist and designer Daniel Arsham has built a blue zen garden complete with a Japanese tea house as one of a trio of installations at Atlanta's High Museum of Art.

The exhibition continues Arsham's investigation into the interpretation of history through physical objects, but features some of his first work in colour.

Titled Daniel Arsham: Hourglass, it also includes cast items encased in the sand-based timing devices and a purple cave formed from spheres.

The blue zen garden is routinely raked every Sunday by a performer, while the illuminated teahouse is occupied by the statue of a woman sat on tatami mats, and a selection everyday items.

"The cast figure of a woman in the sand is reminiscent of Pompeii, while a Japanese lantern and scattered objects give the environment a palpable sense of dwelling – as if occupied by a caretaker-hermit," said the museum.

A voice projected through the space also describes the elements of the garden.

Adjacent to the gardenscape is a cavern-like installation created from casts of sports equipment. First shown at New York's Galerie Perrotin last year, the purple-hued piece comprises moulded footballs, basketballs and tennis balls.

Together with the teahouse, they form one of Arsham's first departures from a solely black, grey and white palette – as seen in his 2016 solo show at the Savannah College or Art and Design.

The artist is colourblind, but has recently been able to see a more vibrant spectrum of hues using special glasses that refract light.

"Life is definitely more nuanced, but I'm not sure it's more interesting," he said. "I feel like I'm inside a game – an overly saturated world."

"But now I've arrived at a point where I'm using colour as another tool in my work," Arsham continued. "This is a unique project for me in that there is a ton of colour, so I think it's going to be really interesting to see audiences react."

Downstairs, the hourglasses are also turned by a performer every Sunday. In this space, a child's voice describes the objects encased inside, which are revealed and concealed by the fine sand grains as they gradually fall from top to bottom.

This exhibition expands on the artist's Fictional Archaeology body of work, which involves casting everyday objects in precious and semi-precious stones and metals.

"Arsham's installations challenge our perception of history as static and removed from individual experience," said Jonathan Odden, the museum's curatorial assistant of modern and contemporary art.

"History is profoundly human, created from the objects and events each of us encounters, and Arsham's work reminds us of these important connections."

Daniel Arsham: Hourglass runs from 4 March to 21 May 2017 at the High Museum of Art, which hosted a set of animal-shaped play equipment by Jamie Hayón last year.

Arsham co-founded architecture studio Snarkitecture, which has previously created installations that involved filling the National Building Museum in Washington DC with nearly one million plastic balls, and creating a warren from strips of translucent white fabric in Milan.