Newsflash: Nao Matsunaga

Show You A Mystery, 2025, Holm oak

Works left to right: Flabber, Tower of Wishful Thinking, Smile! If U Wanna, 2017, Glazed Porcelain

Nao Matsunaga (1980-) is an artist born in Osaka, Japan and lives and works in London. He studied at the University of Brighton (1999 - 2002) on the 'Wood, Metal, Ceramic and Plastic' course, and completed his MA in Ceramic and Glass at the Royal College of Art in 2007. In 2013 he was the winner of the British Ceramics Biennial Award, and of the Jerwood Makers Open in 2012. He attained a Bursary from the British Council in Indonesia in 2016. Matsunaga has shown nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions; in 2020, he had solo exhibitions in Tokyo and London alongside group exhibitions in both Denmark and Australia.

The amalgamation of park and gallery is extremely popular, in our current show Nao Matsunaga has used wood from Roche Court, had it treated and has carved it into wonderful, abstract forms which are now in our main gallery. He has been a potter for many years and exhibited globally. He has recently returned from the Japanese Biennale and his exhibition at Roche court continues until mid September. His exhibition here contains some of his ceramics. A mixture of the white, glazed porcelain and simple wood forms makes a fundamental statement as to how the use of materials dominates the final image and illustrates the skill and intelligence of the artist.