Masaomi Yasunaga

Pierre Marie Giraud presents a new exhibition by Masaomi Yasunaga, opening on May 21st and continuing through June 27th. Living and working in Iga-shi, Mie Prefecture, Japan, Masaomi Yasunaga continues to expand the language of contemporary ceramics through an experimental and deeply material-driven practice. Rooted in the legacy of postwar Japanese avant-garde ceramics, his work moves fluidly between sculpture, vessel, relief, and image, exploring how glaze, mineral compounds, and clay can transform through firing into surfaces that feel simultaneously ancient and newly formed.

This exhibition brings together e new group of Empty Creature sculptures alongside mosaic wall works, mosaic vessels, stone vessels, and the delicate Silence Bird series. Across these different bodies of work, recurring motifs of birds, vessels, animals and still-life compositions emerge through textured surfaces composed of glaze, colored slip, tile, kaolin, silica, titanium oxide, silver leaf, brass, copper and plaster. The mosaic works introduce a distinct pictorial and narrative dimension within Yasunaga's practice. Built from small ceramic tesserae and irregular fragments, these wall pieces evocke faded frescoes, archaeological remnants or fragments of vernacular decoration. Vases, birds and quiet interior-like scenes appear embedded within rough mineral surfaces as if slowly revealed through erosion and sedimentation. Their muted palette - ash grey, pale blue, ivory, sand, oxidised pink, and metallic traces of silver and brass - gives the works a subdued luminosity and an almost weathered intimacy.