Volta 2026 - What Remains | Solo Show
Kenji Gomi
17th of June 2026 - 21st of June 2026
Basel, Switzerland
What Remains
Kenji Gomi’s sculptures emerge from a process where fire is not a finishing step, but the core of creation.
Working without glaze, Gomi developed a distinctive firing technique in which his pieces are partially buried in rice husks during firing. Through this process of carbonization, heat and organic matter interact directly with the clay, producing a range of deep, nuanced tones; smoky greys, earthen browns, and shadowed surfaces that shift subtly across each form.
The colour is not applied, it is the residue of fire.
Each work is fired multiple times, allowing a balance between control and unpredictability. The surface becomes a record of these encounters, where the trace of the process remains embedded within the material.
Gomi’s forms, often rounded and compressed, seem shaped as much by pressure and gravity as by the hand. They evoke the distant memory of vessels, yet resist function entirely. In the Saidoki series, the idea of containment persists without interior; in the Huta-mono, the vessel returns, but remains closed, withholding access.
Rooted in an early fascination with Jōmon ceramics, his work carries a sense of time that exceeds the present. These are not objects that represent history; they feel as though they have already passed through it.
What remains is not function, nor narrative, but presence.
