OV Project (en-US)

The Intimate Conviction exhibition is a dialogue between two artists: the Japanese ceramic artist Toshiaki Noda and the Swedish painter Harriet Raab. From different back-grounds, Noda and Raab express their art through totally opposite mediums. Harriet Raab’s painting formed of large surfaces in bright and sharp colors is confronted with ceramics by Toshiaki Noda.

Toshiaki Noda (b. 1982) was born in Arita, Saga prefecture, Japan. A area well-known for its craftmanship in porcelain ceramics since the beginning of the 17th century. Influenced by her parents selling ceramics, Noda therefore naturally focuses on this medium; Japanese tradition requires. Unlike the smooth consistent surfaces of traditional ceramics, Noda uses the plasticity of clay to create shapes pronounced gesture thus exploring an infinitely personal texture and colored hues. His creatives process includes unique manual work: sculpting, stacking, but also a game of creation and destruction but also a game of creation and destruction arising according to his desires.

Toshiaki Noda’s work finds its place at the intersection between pottery, craftsmanship, design, sculpture and the history of ceramics. He begins his creative work with an everyday work with an everyday object such as a shoe, a twisted soda can, a vase or a cup of tea. These found objects are the basis of his creative process. Noda appropriates them, reinvents them, disturbs them; altering them in order to bring out from their aspect a feeling of sadness and a certain irony. He finds in these transformations themes that are close to him. Heart, fragility, but also life and death.

The search for harmony in distortion of everyday objects is at the heart of Toshiaki Noda’s practice. It is precisely in these themself of life and death - mixed with this search for harmony in the distortion of everyday objects that the work of Toshiaki Noda inscribes - joining thus the spirit of Harriet Raab - with which he is confronted during this first exhibition for the two artists in Belgium.

It is precisely in these themes of life and death - mixed with this search for harmony in the distortion of everyday objects - that Toshiaki Noda’s work is inscribed - thus joining the spirit of Harriet Raab - with whom he is confronted during this first exhibition for both artists in Belgium.

Harriet Raab (b.) is based in Stockholm. Her work immerses us in his deep intimacy. Non-academic, Harriet’s work draws its strength and power from her emotions, her memories as well as in fleeting images of yesterday and today. Without prior design of his project, the artist deliberately launches into the blank canvas. Improvisation - almost musical - is totally part of his creative process. Harriet also notes in this regard: “I paint motions rather than pictures. For me, music is vital: when I create I very often play the same pieces.

My musical universe touches my interiority, my intimate, it reminds me of happy memories, melancholy sometimes sad, which are also an integral part of my creative process. Harriet Raab’s painting is in perpetual motion, it builds itself deliberately and in and intuitive almost furtive way. The unexpected gives birth to his work: a movement of the body, a projection of paint, a phrase that arises… Permanently remodeled, thought again, refined, Raab's work is driven by a desire for depth and spirituality.