NAOKI KOIDE

Koide is an artist toying with tradition. Yet he’s a very singular one: despite being able to create a surprising complicity with the public, Naoki Koide's sculptures are also disconcerting because of both their materials and topics.

His choice of materials seems the easiest question to solve. The sculptures have a seemingly polished and shiny look, reminiscent of pottery. However if we touch them, another world is summoned: a children’s play park, adapted for grown-ups. The sculptures are actually made of FRP (fibre- reinforced plastic), spray painted with lacquer, then polished to achieve a perfect finishing. This new material is mostly used in design and architecture industries. One of the most recent examples is the Tokyo Plastic House created by Kengo Kuma. The plastic allows the light to pass through, giving a “cocoon” atmosphere to the house and wrapping up its visitors. This luminous material, both light and solid, gives objects a sensual feel.

The roundness of the shapes and the pastel choice of colour make Naoki Koide’s characters give us viewers a touch of nostalgia as they seem to pop up straight out of our childhood TV shows.

The choice of topic is tougher to crack, despite the familiarity conjured by the characters and their funny faces. Rather than simple sculptures, these are sculptural installations, and Naoki Koide is more of a stage director to his sculptures, which he then proceeds to take pictures of. The set-up invites the viewer into a life sized doll house where the sculptures interact with each other to tell us stories, thus becoming real actors in a performance.

Naoki Koide’s work doesn’t feature strangers. He needs to know his characters to bring them to life in three dimensions. This is not only about a visualization of the character, but rather about an intimate understanding of its heart and soul, its very essence. That could explain why the artist chooses to paint the insides of his sculptures – whether animal or human. Once, as the result of a bet with a member of the public, he created a whale, an imaginary creature of the same stuff dreams are made of, rather than a strict depiction of Nature.

The familiarity established with these figures takes us beyond everyday life – especially when you notice their facial expressions. Ghostly or sketched, their fixed Buddha smiles remind us of traditional guardian statues in sanctuaries. Others seem to be vanishing into clouds, like spirits. This traditional style of statues, revived here, manages to find a place in contemporary life, thanks to the use of new materials and has taken a new place in the urban landscape.

The Marriage sculptures are joyful. Not only their merry faces but also the way they’re dressed up can make us laugh, especially since the artist made them a replacement for his own couple. The two characters give an insight into the artist’s private life and a new, special connection is made with the viewers, renewed after each exhibition. The latest display goes even further: on a table in the middle of the exhibition, a character is getting ready to give birth to an entire universe. This incredible world can be observed through apertures made in the sculpture, allowing us to take a look on the inside. The autobiographic tone of the piece is clearly established here, yet isn’t it also a metaphor for all artists about to give birth to a new creation, a true representation of the creative process itself?

[Text: "Nouvelle Grande" by Sophie Cavaliero, Le Lezard Noir, 2011]

His work is a part of the private collections of Takahashi Collections and The JAPIGOZZI Collection.