Otani Workshop: Monsters in My Head Unleashes a Bewitching Dreamworld

Stepping into Monsters in My Head feels less like entering a gallery and more like tumbling headlong into the subconscious of a singular, visionary mind. This exhibition—Japanese artist Otani Workshop’s first solo presentation in North America—is an unapologetically bold and hauntingly beautiful exploration of myth, memory, and the alchemy of clay. It is, quite simply, one of the most stunning and eerily creative installations the Vancouver Art Gallery has mounted in years.

A LEGACY REIMAGINED

Born in 1980 in Shigaraki, Japan’s ancient cradle of ceramics, Shigeru Otani has forged a practice that refuses to be contained by tradition alone. His art is an unflinching collision of time-honoured technique and contemporary expression, each piece breathing with raw, unfiltered life. Here, in this labyrinthine installation, ceramic creatures in all manner of fantastical forms emerge from mounds of earth and weathered stumps, their presence electric and unsettling.

MATERIALS TRANSFORMED

The mazelike layout itself feels alive. Constructed from materials scavenged in Vancouver’s own parks and forests, it mirrors Otani’s process: an intuitive gathering of clay, wood, and flora transformed into beings that hover somewhere between human and animal, spirit and stone. These sculptures—some monumental, some small enough to cradle in your palms—are not merely objects; they are emissaries from a world at once strange and achingly familiar.

INSPIRED BY PLACE

Visitors will trace Otani’s journey from the storied kilns of Shigaraki to the Pacific shores of the Pacific Northwest Coast. During his Deer Lake Artist Residency at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in the summer of 2024, Otani crafted new works that respond directly to the local landscape. Other pieces, forged in his studio on Awaji Island overlooking the Seto Inland Sea, echo Japan’s deep ceramic lineage but radiate the artist’s own restless experimentation.

FRAGILE EMOTIONS CAPTURED

His paintings, meanwhile, are tender counterpoints to the sculptures’ raw physicality. They hum with adolescent wonder and melancholy, capturing elusive feelings of longing and hope with delicate, almost childlike immediacy.

AN INVITATION EXTENDED

Monsters in My Head is no mere exhibition. It is an invitation to wander into the forest of Otani’s imagination—courageous, uncanny, and brimming with the power to astonish.

Author Profile

Helen Siwak, Luxury Lifestyle Observer: Helen Siwak is the founder of EcoLuxLuv Communications & Marketing Inc and publisher of Folio.YVR Luxury Lifestyle Magazine and PORTFOLIOY.YVR Business & Entrepreneurs Magazine. She is a prolific content creator, consultant, and marketing and media strategist within the ecoluxury lifestyle niche. Helen is the west coast correspondent to Canada’s top-read industry magazine Retail-Insider, holds a vast freelance portfolio, and consults with many of the world’s luxury heritage brands. Always seeking new opportunities and challenges, you can email her at [email protected].