Oya Masayoshi

Ceramicist

The meeting of two cultures

Masayoshi discovered ceramics by chance
His intrigue for its culture led him to Sweden
His artworks are influenced by his Japanese roots

Masayoshi Oya is a ceramicist from Japan who lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden. His ceramic creations combine Japanese and Swedish culture and design traditions. “I wanted to expand my artistic personality and that is why I came here, I see that my expression becomes broader when I work between two cultures,” he says. His tableware and objects are sought after for their aesthetics, both playful and colourful with his signature use of graphic glazing. He runs his own studio where he handmakes shapes on the potter’s wheel mainly in white porcelain clay. Often his shapes take the form of cylinders and plates of different sizes. The white clay is his canvas on which he hand paints graphic patterns or experiments with stained colour.

Where

Interview

How did you discover ceramics?: I chose a course in woodwork at school in Japan, but the teacher retired before the class started. My new teacher was a ceramicist, so the class turned out to be something else. I felt immediately that this was my material, and have known ever since that this is the material that I want to work with.
Do you remember your first object?: Yes, I made a whale in elementary school. I was very proud, it was a mix between a whale and a seal. I still like to combine expressions and patterns when I think about it, so yes, it is still connected to my work today, I would say.
What is unusual about your creative process?: Whilst crafting my ceramics, I try to concentrate on making the glaze pattern uniform, but sometimes accidently droplets of glaze splash on the surface, creating beautiful organic shapes. By diverting my focus from consciously dispersing the glaze to a more haphazard process, it results in a sense of harmony.
Where do you find your inspiration?: Everywhere! In tradition and history, in the accidental or the odd, in the experimental. In the meeting of the Swedish and Japanese cultures, the forest, and in nature. What I see inspires and shapes my work.

Oya Masayoshi is an expert artisan: he began his career in 2012