Born in Japan, Yoko Ozawa has been creating ceramics since 2003.
During her university studies in Japanese painting, she was deeply influenced by the Japanese notion of Yohaku (blank space), which she incorporated into her ceramics and wider installation practice. Her work is inspired by her lifelong interest in natural phenomena such as seasonal transitions, fog, breeze, rain, light, and shadow. For Yoko, the space inside and outside her work holds possibility and meaning instead of simply ‘nothingness’. Her work engages in a dialogue with the philosophical concept of yohaku, resulting in an enhanced understanding of the world and our minds.
Yoko’s work is also deeply influenced by the textures and tones of nature from her upbringing in the Japanese countryside and the nature of the Australian landscape, where she now lives and works.
Since setting up her studio in Melbourne in 2012, she has exhibited widely throughout Australia, Japan, and England, including the National Gallery of Victoria, MARS Gallery, Melbourne, MPavllion, Melbourne, Jam Factory, Adelaide, Somerset House, London,England, and mina perhonen, Kyoto, Japan.