HARD EDGES, SOFT MATERIALS
Sho Ota and Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl
22 May - 28 June 2025
Exhibition opening on Thursday 22 May from 16.00 to 19.00
The exhibition will be opened at 17.00 by Frederik Hardvendel, director of The National Art Workshops (SVFK)
The theme is wood and clay and our immediate perception of these basic natural materials. Can wood and clay be soft and hard at the same time? How is the material itself highlighted in the story told by a work of art?
Ceramic artist Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl has invited the Japanese designer Sho Ota, who works in wood, into a dialogue in the exhibition Hard Edges, Soft Materials. The exhibition revolves around their shared interest in exploring the basic properties of their respective materials and the possibilities of form conditioned by the inherent qualities of both clay and wood and the visual expression of the artist’s method.
Sho Ota trained as a furniture designer in Japan and at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, where he has lived and worked since 2018. His unique approach to furniture and other objects springs from the intersection of industrial production and individual craftmanship.
He creates serial works (for example According to the Grain, 2021) by carefully carving into the layers of the wood to chisel out the knots and expose the internal structure of the material. In other series, such as Surfaced, which is represented in the exhibition, he glues together a structure from cut pieces of wood – mainly production offcuts – which he carves to bring out details that define the object with both open gaps and solidity and a focus on the different textures of the wood.
Sho Ota’s new pieces in the exhibition at Peach Corner are sculptural objects that have maintained a basic functional tone, but above all, they are poetic visual expressions that explore our relationship with nature. They clearly appear as constructed natural forms that accentuate and highlight the inseparable poles of our perceptions of wood: the free-growing organism versus the sawn-up and glued-together material. Natural growth versus high-precision craftmanship. Soft and hard – and vice versa.
In Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl’s ceramic pieces for this exhibition, we see forms appearing from and in the clay as a lump. He places the lump, the material, on a pedestal. The transitions between base and figure and the conventional roles assigned to them are blurred. In a playful and explorative approach, he demonstrates the different sculptural behaviours of clay as a natural substance and maintains its expression throughout the ceramic process, drying and firing. The thick viscous mass of clay that finds its own way and shapes its own form, driven by gravity. In the process, the material’s clear statement of softness and malleability is transformed into hardness and stability but always maintains the ceramic material’s inherent fragility.
Kaldahl’s method in this process is to initiate the material’s own behaviour and follow along; responding to and perhaps contrasting the pure natural movement. Adding visual elements that invite the viewer inside the lump, turning it into a complex object, a sculpture.
Sho Ota is widely acclaimed around the world and has shown his works at many design events, including at Dutch Design Week and at DESIGNART in Tokyo, both in 2021, and in European galleries.
Martin Bodilsen Kaldahl has a long international career behind him and most recently presented his body of work through 35 years in the large retrospective exhibition Cuts, Stripes and Knots – a ceramic retrospective at CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark in 2024–25. His works are represented in museum collections the world over.
NB: On Thursday, 19 June, in connection with the 3daysofdesign festival, Peach Corner extends the opening hours of the gallery to 20.00. From 18.30, the gallery hosts an artist talk with both artists, moderated by Annie Carlano, Senior Curator at the Mint Museum, North Carolina, USA.