Rando Aso
Rando Aso
May 2024
In this exhibition, you have moved toward more sculptural pieces and away from earthenware vessels. These pieces explore relief work where you’ve made a 3 dimensional object that fits perfectly into another object and when separated, leaves a void. As always with your work, these pieces are so tactile and playful while also feeling minimal and even profound. Do you have any experiences or incidents that inspired these forms? Do you consciously consider the form in order to express your particular ideas?
Quietness and intensity, toughness and weakness, hard and soft...I’m curious about the space where elements coexist within contrasts. I’m interested in space and the relationship with it, where it can create an impact on people’s feelings. The positive bulge or the negative dent…the tangible / intangible space. For me, these opposing spaces are necessary to feel the sensation of the void, the intimate space. When you take the sphere out of the negative space or put it out the sphere in outside…this can enhance the reality of recognition of the space even more. Those kinds of recognitions led me to create the forms that I’m currently into…the series of 'sphere & space’ and ‘intimate space’.
You currently live under the special residency scheme that Minokamo city offers to artists in Satoyama in Gifu. They invite artists to the remote village, offering abandoned houses to stay in for free or very cheap, in exchange for the artists regular contribution of time to help the community either by assisting the elderly or helping to maintain the natural spaces of the village. What has this experience been like? Has it enhanced your creative life in any way? These wonderful schemes are available in other cities too, do you want to live elsewhere?
I was searching for a suitable place to live for my creative life, and this meant I could keep creating my work and the circumstances naturally led me to create the kind of art form I make now, I think.
Every once or twice a month I work for Satoyama, maintaining the nature with local people. Mainly weeding or cutting the grass during April to October period, and during winter I help with trimming / cutting some trees. This kind of work protects our local environment.
It sounds wonderful if we say this is coexisting with nature but seriously I have learnt a lot through this work that utilises wisdom with care and consideration for nature. There is no doubt I am interested in living in other cities as well but for now, I am fascinated to know how much you can offer to nature and back to you in vice-versa if you are giving it some love. So I’m thinking I’ll continue to utilise this amazing offer and continue my good work to see what comes in the future.
What does your craft mean to you ?
Extracting the potential of materials through handcrafting and craftsmanship, infusing the essence of transforming the work of era & spirit, imbuing my creative interpretation to reflect the zeitgeist & ethos.
What kind of artist do you want to become?
I would like to be an artist who can showcase my work internationally.
I would like to articulate my vision and follow my intuition.
Challenging the new field to express my presence through my work.
Do you have any message that you want to share with our audience ?
I would like everyone to experience (see and feel) my work and then I’m curious to hear your opinion or thoughts of my work. It will be wonderful to discover if we can have a similar point of view or understanding through Art, even though we have a different background and language…
