Otani Workshop, Seated Bear, 2022. Platinum leaf on bronze. 43.6 × 27.4 × 27.5 cm |
17 3/16×10 13/16×10 13/16 in. ©2022 Otani Workshop/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy Perrotin
The world of Shigeru Otani is populated with strange and wonderful creatures, the kind which come to us in dreams or who - maybe - live among us, invisible. Born in 1980 and based on the island of Awaji, Otani Workshop is one of the major figures of Japanese ceramics. He also uses painting and sculpture to explore the silent yet animated world of childhood.
The Shape of Our Butts, The Shape of Our Souls is his 8th solo exhibition at Perrotin and the 2nd one in Paris.
JSS: I read that Alberto Giacometti had been a great influence and one artist who inspired you to become one yourself. Is this true? Which other artists have been influential in your work?
OW: Yes. Giacometti was an artist whom the teacher who introduced me to the world of art, deeply admired. I came to know Giacometti through my teacher’s eyes, and I think his work has left a lasting impression on me — the way he achieved profound expression through what appears to be a simple approach: creating things as he saw them.
I have also been influenced by many other artists.
JSS: How and why did you go from sculpture to ceramics ?
OW: I studied sculpture at an art university, where I learned the sculptural language of form and the fundamentals of making things, which was a very meaningful experience. However, after graduating, I felt that continuing to create large-scale sculptures like those I had studied at university was not realistic, as I had neither the money nor the space to do so.
At the same time, I wanted to continue living through the act of creating and making things, using the knowledge of form and craftsmanship that I had acquired at art school.
At that time in Japan, I felt that a new scene was emerging, where personal works that differed somewhat from traditional crafts were beginning to appear, and I found that movement very interesting.
Around the same period, I encountered Picasso’s ceramics, which also made me think that working with ceramics could be fascinating. This might also have had some influence on me.
I then began visiting Shigaraki, a town near my family home known for its ceramic tradition, where I learned various things and eventually began working in ceramics.
Otani Workshop, Boy, 2025. FRP. 35.3 × 38.7 × 38.7 cm | 13 7/8 × 15 1/4 × 15 1/4 in.
©2025 Otani Workshop/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy Perrotin
JSS: Your work feels like creatures that could be around us, but that we are not sensitive enough to see. Would you agree with that idea ? They are both familiar and strange, like in fairy tales in the West.
OW: I’m happy if that is how you perceive my work. When I create based on imagination, I feel that even though they are my own images, they are somehow connected to images that we all share in common.
Perhaps they come from Western fairy tales or Japanese stories, but I feel that the familiar yet strange images are also connected to images that many people have imagined throughout history.
JSS: How has having children changed your work ? Has it reinforced what you're creating, for example, or taken your work in a different direction ?
OW: I think that, until then, I had some hesitation or difficulty in handling the human figure as a subject, and I probably used animals as motifs more often.
By watching my own children closely, I realized that I myself and all the adults around me were once babies who, when we were born, were sort of like half-animals — unable to communicate through language.
When I began to think that there was something so endearing about all of us in that state, I think I gradually started incorporating humans as motifs more frequently.
Views of Otani Workshop's exhibition 'The Shape of our Butts, The Shape of our Souls' at
Perrotin Matignon, Paris, 2026. Photo: Tanguy Beurdeley. ©2026 Otani Workshop/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy Perrotin
JSS: If you were working in a different culture, in France, for example, do you think your work would be different ? Why ?
OW: That may indeed be true. I am certainly influenced by what I see around me, and I imagine my way of thinking would also have been different.
Speaking of ways of thinking, I feel that even in Japan, had I lived in the city, my works might have turned out differently as well.
JSS: When working for your show in Vancouver, you mentioned that proximity to water is important to you. Can you explain why ?
OW: The place where I lived as a child was near a body of water, and I was somehow drawn to it.
Water is influenced and controlled by human beings, yet at the same time, it somehow evokes a world that exists outside of human society.
Perhaps that is why I am attracted to it??
~ Jean-Sébastien Stehli
OTANI WORKSHOP. THE SHAPE OF OUR BUTTS, THE SHAPE OF OUR SOULS. Galerie Perrotin Paris. Until July 25. perrotin.com
©️Otani Workshop/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy Perrotin. Photo: Tanguy Beurdeley.
