All the nostalgia of your childhood in the 8-bit ceramic works of Toshiya Masuda

Tell us what you do and your beginnings.

The original experience of video games that I encountered as a child was a source of inspiration, and my desire to see CG – Computer Graphics in three dimensions led me to think about what materials would have the greatest impact when digital images are made three-dimensional.

It occurred to me that it would be more interesting to make the images in ceramic, which tends to be the complete opposite of digital. I thought: “Why not make it in ceramics?”. It started with the idea that it would be more interesting if it were made in ceramics.

What does your work aim to say?

As people age, they make decisions based on their own experiences and acquired knowledge. They control their emotions based on their previous knowledge and precedents, which often become common knowledge without their knowledge.

 

© Toshiya Masuda

In this sense, when people hear the word ‘ceramics’, they imagine ‘vessels’, the texture and colour of clay and glaze, and a sense of reality that they can touch, but when they hear the word ‘CG’, many people imagine digital images on monitors such as video games that they cannot touch. The digital image of CG, which has neither texture nor a sense of reality, creates a gap with the image of ceramics, which has the exact opposite image of texture and reality.

The sense of wonder felt from this image gap is something that can only be created in the time in which I live, where the virtual world (imaginary image) and the real world (real image) intersect, and I believe that this work, which is unprecedented in the long history of ceramics, will provide an opportunity to think about contemporary reality.

Where do you find inspiration for your art?

I attach great importance to ‘words’ in my work. Sometimes they come from my everyday life, from my doubts, from my awareness of problems, and sometimes words I am interested in from books I am reading, lyrics of music I am listening to or any media trigger ideas for my artworks.