WORK OF THE WEEK: Nao Matsunaga, Stack of Oak, 2025

11 Aug

**Nao Matsunaga**
*Stack of Oak, 2025*
*Holm oak*
*122 x 55 x 55 cm*
*48 x 21 ⅗ x 21 ⅗ in.*

Nao Matsunaga (1980 -) is an artist born in Osaka, Japan, who 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 recently returned to the New Art Centre to discuss the creative process of his wood sculptures, such as Stack of Oak, which he carved from the Holm Oak tree here at Roche Court. In collaboration with Woodland Heritage, Matsunaga underscored the unique, meditative and sustainable process quintessential to working with wood. Although he mainly works in ceramics, Matsunaga, motivated by curiosity and a willingness to embrace new materials and methods, created a series of woodland sculptures now showcased alongside his ceramic work in his exhibition A Year's Thought. (Open in the Gallery and Orangery, concluding September 2025)

Matsunaga described the nuance in the cyclical nature of wood carving as a personal endeavour: 'The whole process was about really knowing this place. A lot of these trees were here before the house was here, before the gallery was here. It felt quite powerful for me to work with the material that is just there, to work it here and be able to show it here. There's a kind of circular motion which doesn't happen very often, and I feel very lucky about being able to connect with a specific type of wood and type of tree, that had it's own meaning in a way.'

Nao Matsunaga - The creative process

'I carved myself out a space in the farm yard. There was a massive pile of wood - the size of this gallery - so the first bit of the process was fishing for the right wood, going for the right, interesting - to me - shape, or parts of wood that might go along well with another.'

'The more I worked with it here, and I was coming around one week a month, in and out; it's a very interesting way of working. When I'm working I'm almost not looking at my object so much, I'm just so involved with the process, and then the next month I come back and I'm seeing everything new again, I can approach it fresh every time.'

'You are a wonderful spectacle as you make your sculptures.' Madeleine Bessborough told Matsunaga, 'He became the best part of our education, every day we had groups of children going up there, saying they didn't want to be talked to about sculpture, they just wanted to watch the sculptor. I think it gave them a lot of inspiration because Nao concentrates on what he does, he doesn't pay any attention to anyone around him. Yet he suddenly had all these children asking him questions, and he was brilliant. I cannot thank him enough. I am absolutely thrilled with the exhibition because it is a product of what this place is all about; it's art and it's endeavour and it's team spirit. He's made great friends with everybody here, and he's a very good bit of glue in all our lives.'

Nao 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. His solo exhibition in the Gallery at Roche Court concludes in September 2025, however, his work is permanently on display and will be shown in the Design House later this year.