art space co-jin

ASAMURA Takashi

Born in 1977. Lives in Joyo city.
While in the clay room, he basically draws without stopping, producing a very large number of works. The characters drawn in his sketchbook seem to be playing with words by wordplay, for example, many words with "na" such as "banana”, "nara", and “7 (nana)” appear, and "sayonara (good-bye)” is sometimes written repeatedly, changing the word to "hiyonara" or "mayonara".

OE Shigeharu

Born in 1948. Lives in Joyo city.
OE's works, which favor reds and greens, are created by repeatedly using oil pastels on a board placed on a desk on a daily basis. Because he changes the direction of the board as necessary during the drawing process, his works are light and airy, with no sense of up or down. He loves to paint, and used to secretly take his painting materials home and paint on the walls of his room.

OKU Mitsuo

Born in 1951. Lives in Joyo city.
He has been creating "dolls" for more than 10 years. The "dolls" are made by piling up clay pieces that are rounded to 1 to 2 cm in diameter and finally drawing faces on them. He creates several pieces a day, and the number continues to grow daily. The size of the balls is sometimes large, sometimes small, and changes depending on OKU's physical condition and mood on any given day.

SATO Kayoko

Born in 1965. Lives in Joyo city.
She creates watercolor paintings and clay works. Many of the watercolor paintings feature flowers, SATO's favorite motif, in vivid colors. Some of them are painted not only with a brush but also with her fingers, showing that she uses different techniques depending on her mode of expression. Her clay works are also characterized by organic forms that remind us of flowers and other plants.

SAWAMOTO Takashi

Born in 1965. Lives in Joyo city.
SAWAMOTO creates clay works with the motif of "snakes" (or "insects"). The process of creation consists of placing torn and rounded clay on a table, then pressing a container lid or other object on top to form a mold, then scratching the mold with a stick-shaped tool to create an uneven surface, and repeatedly piling these layers on top of each other to form the piece.

TAMAI Hiroshi

Born in 1951. Lives in Joyo city.
TAMAI's works are mainly based on motifs of people and dogs. It is not clear whether the people refer to specific persons or not, but the dogs seem to be based on a pet that used to be kept at his parents' house. The artist is characterized by his bold forms, which seem to leave traces of his vigor, because he is fast in his work and quickly creates with clay when he is handed it.

NISHINARI Teruko

Born in 1955. Lives in Joyo city.
First, she draws a few lines in oil pastel in her sketchbook, and then proceeds to draw similar lines on the next page. When she reaches the end of the sketchbook, she returns to the previous page and repeats the same process. It is as if the time she spends in the clay room is vividly left behind as a trace.

NISHIMURA Taeko

Born in 1963. Lives in Joyo city.
She repeatedly scrapes the surface of a piece of clay the size of a rolled cake prepared by the facility staff with her fingers, kneads it lightly with her fingertips as if she was tasting the texture, and then drops it on the floor. When the surface of the clay is covered with the traces of scraped fingers, she sometimes drops the large pieces of clay on the floor as well.

HAYAMI Motoyoshi

Born in 1970. Lives in Joyo city.
HAYAMI's works are created by grasping and plucking lumps of clay. Despite the traces of finger-picking and the fold-like shapes, the motifs of his works are, according to him, "the multi-level parking lot of Alpla" (*) and “expressways."
(*) "Alpla" is the nickname of the supermarket “AL.PLAZA” which operates mainly in Shiga Prefecture.