Awaken: Yoko Ozawa

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.

AWAKEN

Yoko Ozawa began working in her cold winter studio in preparation for the November exhibition, feeling the gradually warming spring breeze.

Including By the Window, Still and 吹き溜まり Fukidamari- A Bank of Falling Leaves, a recurring indirect motif of the seemingly invisible wind in Yoko’s work, is not just the embodiment of seasonal changes and natural phenomena but a reflection of everyday life.

Yoko’s lifelong concept, the Japanese notion of yohaku, is a exploration of the space between objects, the gaps in time, and our communication. It interconnects the traces of the elements, the season, signs of decay and time passing, and this sensation enhances our connection with many ecosystems that look forward to a new vital spring.

On the other hand, as the seasonal cycle, autumn is the time, moving towards winter, a part of the collections from this exhibition; in her work A Missing Part 2024, now reconstruction from 吹き溜まり Fukidamari - A Bank of Falling Leaves, a large vessel exhibited at the NGV Melbourne Now, exhibition 2023, Yoko explores the transience of nature and the seasons. As we shift into the colder weather, the vessel breaks apart by the artist’s hand, there is a sense of loss but also gain, transformation to new beginnings.