ODANI MOTOHIKO: PHANTOM LIMB

With a body of dynamic work using media as diverse as sculpture, photography and video, Odani Motohiko (born 1972) is one of Japan's most acclaimed artists – both at home and abroad. The artist's work tends to arise out of his interest in the sensations of fear, pain and unease, and his way of giving physical and sculptural expression to abstract sensations and psychological conditions is unique and often confronting. At the same time, Odani possesses his own critical view of sculpture as a medium. Keeping an eye on its long tradition in the West and the reception that tradition has received in Japan, Odani has also sought to reinvent the medium for his own time and place. His approach is influenced by his experience of growing up in Kyoto surrounded by sculptural representations of Buddha and also in his own long-held interest in figurines and Japanese subcultures. This exhibition brings together new and early works by Odani. It surveys the power of an artistic practice that explores the border between the concrete and the abstract, the traditional and the new and the physical and the spiritual.