Open: Mon-Sat 10am-6pm

10 Dosan-daero 45-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Open: Mon-Sat 10am-6pm


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Otani Workshop: Hand, Eye, and Soul

Perrotin Seoul, Seoul

Thu 17 Nov 2022 to Fri 20 Jan 2023

10 Dosan-daero 45-gil, Gangnam-gu, Otani Workshop: Hand, Eye, and Soul

Mon-Sat 10am-6pm

Artist: Otani Workshop

Perrotin Seoul presents Hand, Eye, and Soul, Otani Workshop’s second solo show in Seoul. Following Children of, his first exhibition in Seoul in 2018, this show features the most recent and diverse creations including paintings, sculptures, and ceramics.


Installation Views

Installation image for Otani Workshop: Hand, Eye, and Soul, at Perrotin Installation image for Otani Workshop: Hand, Eye, and Soul, at Perrotin Installation image for Otani Workshop: Hand, Eye, and Soul, at Perrotin Installation image for Otani Workshop: Hand, Eye, and Soul, at Perrotin Installation image for Otani Workshop: Hand, Eye, and Soul, at Perrotin Installation image for Otani Workshop: Hand, Eye, and Soul, at Perrotin

A seemingly naive spirit infuses the objects and characters of Otani Workshop’s world. There is a directness about the forms and figures that he creates, manifesting from clay, recycled wood, metal or paint, transformed by his touch.

At first glance, they promise kawaii, the quality of an obstinate cuteness, especially in his round-cheeked children and baby animals. Then look more closely. Gaze into their eyes—patches of brushstrokes forming circles on the canvas or holes poked into ceramics. Sometimes they radiate youthful joy, sometimes they evoke a worldly sadness. They feel.

As an artist, Otani has often said that he aims to make work that have in them something “spirit-like.” In Japan’s Shinto religion, something is “yorishiro” when it has the ability to be occupied by a supernatural deity. Though Otani does not think of his art as directly related to Shintoism, his works are infused with the desire that they embody meaning, by existing and in dialogue with the viewer.

“It is my hope that I can exchange some emotions with viewers through my works.”
- Otani Workshop

In this show, Otani presents paintings, sculptures and ceramic vessels. Pottery is fundamental to his practice, and where in many ways his career began. There is a primal feeling in his ceramic figures. They appear to be cute creatures, but then they bear the marks of how they came into being.

The process is making pottery involves alchemy. Humble mud clay gets mixed until it becomes a certain consistency. Then it might rest for a bit as a lump. With the touch of an artist, it begins its journey of transcendence. Often slowly, the lump is kneaded into a form. Otani doesn’t always know what it will become, but in his physical interaction with the clay, eventually a form reveals itself.

He builds his sculptures by hand, patiently adding layers on layers until a shape takes place. Sometimes it becomes a boy, sometimes it becomes a girl, sometimes it is half a horse or a whole dinosaur.

Otani works and reworks the clay until he is satisfied, the surface bearing the marks of his fingers and tools. Sometimes they are covered with colored glaze, other times he keeps them bare to the biscuit. Then they go into a kiln, where further magic happens. You never really completely know what you get after a firing.

“I think I want to make each single touch to establish itself both figuratively and as abstraction.”
- Otani Workshop

In recent years, Otani has started showing his paintings as well. These are often lively pictures in pastel hues. Going from one medium to another has informed his art, and he attributes having more colors in his ceramics as coming from his making more paintings in recent years.

Otani was born in the neighborhood of Shigaraki in Shiga Prefecture, a part of Japan known for its rural charm and a town famous for pottery. He attended art school in Okinawa, where he focused on sculptures, mostly in clay.

Otani’s works begin in his studio, located in a disused tile factory on the edge of Awajishima, where he toils, mostly by himself. The remote island is wedged between Honshu and Shikoku, in the Seto Inland Sea.

The building is simple but it has all he needs. On his wood shelves he has many books about art, some about his heroes like Giacometti. In the studio, he has bright natural light, high ceilings, space for his kilns, a place to make art. Here he breathes life into his work.

- Alexandra Seno

About the artist
Born in Shiga Prefecture, Japan
Lives and works in Awaji Island, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan

Make no mistake: despite the name, Otani Workshop does not refer to a collective of artists, but to a singular, an eminently singular sculptor who has become the leading representative of Japanese ceramics. Silent and literally bulging heads, figures with their arms raised like praying figures, monumental middle fingers extended upwards, anthropomorphic vases, children, animals, soils, bronzes: Otani Workshop’s bestiary is a world in itself, a world in which dreams and tales converge as well as fantasies and daydreams, a world in which the queenly imagination and the kingly gesture triumph, in which forces and forms meet.

Installation views of Otani Workshop’s 'Hand, Eye, and Soul' at Perrotin Dosan Park, Seoul. Photo: CJYART Studio. ©Otani Workshop/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy Perrotin.

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