Spring view from the Mountain

I create ceramic sculptures based on an interest in objects that have passed through circulation and consumption, continuing to exist while shifting roles in society. Using second-hand goods, antiques, and culturally loaded motifs as starting points, I transfer their forms into clay through molding and transform them through firing. In this process, original functions and contexts are stripped away. Overlapping forms are reconfigured into structures distinct from their initial appearances, where traces of different objects coexist—ranging from natural-like forms to fragments of recognizable motifs. Rather than representing specific objects, the works present images of things that circulate through society, shifting in value and meaning. Focusing on irreversible transformation through firing, I explore how images and concepts become fixed as matter, inviting viewers to imagine the formation, transformation, and underlying structures of objects in society. I am interested in things that have left human hands through distribution and consumption, and how things continue to exist while changing their role in society, and I create three-dimensional works using ceramics. Not only are things simply used and consumed, but they also fall into someone's hands and continue to move while changing their value. I feel that human activities and the structure of society are strongly reflected in this process. In early production, the practice of questioning the structures and assumptions they have was carried out by directly working on existing objects and materials themselves. Industrial products such as aluminum cans and concrete blocks were once returned to the state of the material and then rebaked into the same shape in a kiln, and production was carried out to present “material records” with their names engraved on them by making things that are consumed, such as food and clay, or things that do not maintain a fixed shape with clay. As production progressed, interest grew in how things were formed and what assumptions were used to maintain their shape, but on the other hand, there was also a feeling that simply dealing with the object itself did not sufficiently touch on the relationships and structures behind it. Production methods are reviewed based on the recognition that how motifs, materials, and processes are handled do not sufficiently mesh with the content to be expressed. Among them, we began to focus on the process of copying a shape into clay by molding and fixing it by firing. Although clay is a soft and plastic material, it changes irreversibly through firing and is fixed as a separate substance. This process is not simply a chemical result, but is viewed as having the function of transforming images and concepts into matter. In current production, we use a method of replacing existing objects and images with clay and changing them to another entity by firing. Motifs are imaged by molding, but uses and contexts are stripped down in the process, and reconstructed while multiple forms and traces overlap. The form created in this way is not a reproduction of a specific object, but appears as a state where different elements are mixed. They sometimes look like natural objects, or stand up as amorphous structures while retaining remnants of man-made objects. By capturing existing motifs as images, combining them, and transforming them into pottery, we have tried to shift the meanings and stories that were originally connected, and establish new relationships. Recent works are not limited to individual motifs, but are moving towards the state of “things” themselves that circulate within society and exist while changing roles. Through these images, I am trying to present an opportunity for viewers to imagine the process by which things are born, move, end their role, and change to another value. Pottery is a material that has been used over a long period of human history, and it is a substance that has been deeply linked to human activities. I focus on the temporality of the material and the irreversible changes due to firing, and incorporate the process by which images and concepts are established as matter into my work. There, form is not simply an external form, but appears as something that includes changes in social context, memory, and value. My work is an attempt to reveal the structures and relationships behind objects while borrowing their shapes. By mediating a process called pottery, they are trying to establish relationships between people and objects in modern times while handling the distance between visible shapes and invisible structures.