Fill with Empty

ceramic, glaze, foil
h: 23, w: 15, d: 10 cm
2026

*Delivery will take place after the exhibition period of “Hideo Takashima: World⇄Void” (September 5–October 3, 2026), currently on view at Gallery Nomart.
https://www.nomart.co.jp/exhibition/detail.php?exhCode=0228

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"World⇄Void"

What kind of world unfolds within? I lean in and look.

Perhaps, inside, there is a realm like Kochūten—the legendary paradise said to exist within a jar.
I enter it, discover something, and return to the outside. Then I look into the vessel once again.
With each repetition, inside resonates with outside, and outside with inside. Little by little, the world begins to transform.

Within this act of imagination—of moving back and forth between the interior and exterior of a vessel—we, too, are gradually changed.

This is one landscape born from that continuous exchange.

Hideo Takashima

—From the exhibition statement for “Hideo Takashima: World⇄Void”—

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Hideo Takashima, born in Tokyo, studied Nihonga (Japanese painting), craft and sculpture in undergraduate and graduate studies at Tama Art University, and at the Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School. He is known for his unique approach to ceramics and sculpture, magnifying and inverting the familiar objects of everyday life. Takashima has gained recognition both in Japan and internationally, with notable achievements including a live production at the Fuchu Art Museum and recognition at the Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art. His works have been exhibited in Seoul, Taipei, Kaohsiung, Paris and Brussels, garnering attention from global audiences.
Takashima’s signature series, "Fill with Empty", features ceramic sculptures of humans and animals with large, gaping holes in place of their faces, resembling the mouths of vases. By presenting an absence where an identity-defining feature—the face—should be, Takashima invites viewers to engage in an open-ended contemplation of presence and emptiness.