AIFA Gallery presents Breath of Clay, the first Swiss solo exhibition by Japanese ceramic artist Shinya Tanoue. Through a powerful body of work, Shinya explores the expressive potential of clay as a sculptural medium, one that holds memory, form, breath, and transformation.

Shynia's hand-built works — often shell-like in form — are marked by meticulous coil construction, layered slips, and delicate surface carving. These pieces resist categorization, balancing the architectural and the organic, the symbolic and the sensual. The shell motif, central to his practice since 2007, serves as a metaphor for protection, transformation, and the fragile boundary between interior and exterior life. Each vessel seems to breathe, holding both presence and absence, fragility and resilience.

Clay, for Shinya, is not inert material; it is alive, sensitive, and spiritual. He treats each form as a sculptural artwork in essence: a cradle for emotion, memory, and meaning.

For centuries, Japanese artisans have used urushi lacquer, a sap-based finish, to seal and strengthen pottery. Traditionally applied to prevent porous clay from absorbing water, the use of urushi was historically functional rather than decorative. Yet in Shinya Tanoue’s hands, this ancestral technique is reborn with a contemporary, poetic sensitivity.

Rather than working with glaze, Shynia applies and polishes up to twenty layers of urushi lacquer in various tones. Drawing from the Tsugaru-nuri tradition of northern Japan, known for its elaborate layered finishes and resilience, he carefully polishes the surface until complex, organic patterns emerge from within. The result is a surface that is not reflective or cold, but soft, warm, and intimate, almost reminiscent of living flesh.

In these works, the lacquer coexists with the clay rather than coating it, allowing each piece to serve as a cradle, a cocoon that invites stillness, introspection, and emotional presence.

Shinya's lacquer pieces are both technically demanding and conceptually rich, bridging ancient material knowledge with a contemporary sculptural vision. They extend his ongoing exploration of form, breath, and transformation, adding a new layer, quite literally, to his evolving ceramic language.

Shinya Tanoue’s work has been exhibited widely in Japan and internationally, and is included in major collections such as the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Kyoto, and the Museum of Ceramic Art, Hyogo. His sculptures are celebrated for their material precision, poetic presence, and quiet, lasting impact.

Breath of Clay offers a rare opportunity to experience the depth and subtlety of Shinya's vision, where ancient techniques and contemporary sensibilities converge in forms that ask us not only to see, but to feel.