Sho Ota
October 22nd
︎︎︎ December 4th, 2021
Sho Ota studied industrial design at Chiba University in Japan. He also studied at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. This is no surprise and shows just how clear-sighted he is about design. Is it art or design? Art or craft? Functional or poetic? Or all the above? Sho Ota draws from all these not necessarily opposing directions. Each object produced belongs in one field as much as the other. Although wood - which he knows to perfection,
having worked as a prototype designer for a cabinetmaker - is a constant, forming a common thread, there is a duality at work in each object. What are we looking at? A utilitarian object? A sculpture? Are we looking at a finished or unfinished object? Is the object in the process of being constructed or dismantled? Is it a bench or a coffee table?
The works in the Surfaced series exemplify this. When you look at one of these works, you are immediately struck by this ambivalence. Each object is constructed from assembling
various wooden elements with different cross-sections. It is then skilfully worked, revealing voids and solids. The resulting volume can appear both solid and somewhat delicate.
Perhaps we should look to contemporary art for historical references. Giuseppe Penone is a key figure in the According to the Grain series. Sho Ota's work here, like that of
Giuseppe Penone, consists of freeing the wood around the knots to trace the evolution of the branches. However, unlike Penone, Sho Ota, who is a designer, uses this idea to create furniture. This is a way of constantly reminding us of the very origins of the objects that surround us: several of them come directly from nature or are linked to it.
It would be easy to assume that his only concern is to immerse us in a form of harmony with the objects. While the work involved in shaping the wood is particularly important and
skilful, the final object retains and shows much of its origins. Although the analogy may not be obvious at first glance, it's worth mentioning Jasper Morrison. His work, like that of Sho
Ota, is all about creating objects with which we live in harmony, in a form of continuity. On the verge of disappearing. After all, once in our hands or in use, what we experience is not a form but a use, through a material.
Sho Ota was born in 1984 in Chiba, Japan. He studied industrial design there and worked for a time with a cabinetmaker as a designer and prototype designer. In 2018 he set up his design studio in Eindhoven, after graduating from the Contextual Design department of the Design Academy Eindhoven. In 2019 he was a finalist in the Design Parade 14 in Hyères and in 2020 received a special mention as a finalist in the Pure Talents 2020 competition.
