Product Details

An oil pastel on paper

SIZE: 20 x 28 cm

THE STORY

Shapes in Nature is a collection of thirty new paintings by Japanese artist Yu Kobayashi. The Shop Floor Project began to commission the collection almost three years ago when we were assisting with The House that Yu Built; a feature in The World of Interiors about Yu's home and studio. The subsequent interview with Timothy Brittain-Catlin and the beautiful images by Simon Upton proved to be an important documentation of the artist.

Every day Yu Kobayashi goes out into her garden and down through the black pines to Suruga Bay to find inspiration. She says she often gazes at clouds, 'enjoying the shadows and light leaking into the rooms' and has a long memory for remarkable forms she sees in nature. These shapes  will return again and again to Yu's imagination and she will play with them in her work. Anything from clouds, birds, trees, boats, the straw houses in her beloved north Africa, nests, mountains and even the nocturnal creatures that eat her vegetables make it into these paintings.

Each painting contains the playfulness that Yu Kobayashi is known for, but they also hold a serenity and peacefulness that she herself possesses. She hopes the new owner of her work will also gaze into the canvas and see changing shapes and forms as time passes.

Well known throughout Japan, where her work is in high demand, and busy with national exhibitions, publications and television documentaries, we would like to thank Yu Kobayashi for creating a collection for exclusively for The Shop Floor Project.

We first collaborated with the renowned Japanese artist, Yu Kobayashi in 2013, when we invited her to visit The Shop Floor Project to host a talk about her work and life. Since then we have launched several online collections, hosted another exhibition, worked with The World of Interiors magazine to feature her home and studio in Makinohara and made a short film of her work. 

"With the playfulness of an outsider artist, yet with the skill and understanding of a highly crafted ceramicist - her work is surprising and unique, referencing ancient cultures from Japan to Africa"

See The World of Interiors feature here...