The OAP Sculpture Path is presenting an open-air sculpture exhibition with sculptor Masayuki Tsubota and Kouzo Takeuchi, beginning November 2019.

Tsubota and Takeuchi share several similarities in their approach to shaping their work. Both are characterized by their formal elements that draw attention to both the surface structure, created with geometric shapes, as well as the inner core of the work. In this exhibition, each artist will show four new works that focus on the keyword, axis, which links time and space, work and viewer. The artists will also both show one collaborative work where a piece of the sculpture was made by the other.

Masayuki Tsubota has been producing numerous sculptures that fuse the sophistication of modernism with the warmth of handiwork, and explores the ways of communicating with and awakening the primordial within humans. His work includes a series that, through a combination of color, shape, and shadow, visualized “vibration”; another that depicted “wind” with carved texture that skillfully balanced the sharp with the soft; and works that use materials such as wood, stone, and glass to create forms that resonate with the space and tries to create a pleasant connection between the work and people.

Fascinated by the power of ruins and historical structures, Kouzo Takeuchi creates works that try to express concepts of “time” and “atmosphere” that cannot be fully grasped with only vision. He has created bodies of work including one series in which after firing a cluster of rectangular prisms that he has systematically assembled, he uses a hammer to boldly destroys them; and a series where he carves away the glazed surfaces of his pieces to create a stony, coarse textures that evoke a time long past. While investigating the characteristics of clay through these works,Takeuchi develops a unique way of ceramic expression that deals with the multilayered and multidirectional axis of time.

Tsubota will take on the idea of a “spatial axis” and create sculptures that visualize the fluctuation, contortion and vibration of space to try to create a mutual exchange and sympathy of bodily senses for the viewers at the OAP Sculpture path. Takeuchi will be taking inspiration from the flow of time in a city and the “temporal axis” of changing seasons to create his works. Each artist will also take part in creating a portion of a work that the other has conceived, allowing their ideas to intersect to create two meaningful artworks. Depending on the season and time, these 8 works of deep black and white will show a variety of expressions, and will present a fresh way of looking at time and space.