Masayoshi Oya

2026

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2026

Lada 2

Bilden visar mönstret Folkdräkter i färgen aprikos.

“Pottery has incredible possibilities. With it I can create different emotions, surfaces and objects — from practical things to art. I make simple shapes that I combine with the random behavior of the glaze. It's just like painting on canvas. My design language has roots in both Japanese and Swedish culture and tradition.”

Vandalorum presents in the spring of 2026 an extensive solo exhibition with ceramist Masayoshi Oya. While studying in Japan in the early 2000s, he struggled to find his own artistic identity. He decided to leave Tokyo for Öland to study at the craft and design school Capellagården. Oya subsequently earned a master's degree in Gothenburg, where he currently runs his renowned ceramic workshop.

Since he came to Sweden in 2007, Oya has developed a personal, changing expression and has created art at the intersection of two cultures — the Japanese and the Swedish. His notable production includes both industrial and art objects. Although traditional Japanese arts and crafts have been a great source of inspiration, today it is the encounter between the Swedish and Japanese — what he has experienced and seen — that inspires him. This shapes both his ideas and himself as an artist.

Oya says: “My interest and feeling for clay and ceramics have been with me all my life. Becoming a ceramicist was my dream as a child and I took my first ceramics course when I was 9 years old. But it wasn't until I was 25 that the dream became a reality and I went on a two-year craft training to ceramicist in Aichi, Japan. After some time, however, I felt that I was stuck in a Japanese ceramic tradition and that I needed new inspiration — preferably in a new country — to find my own expression.”

Masayoshi Oya (b. Tokyo 1979) lives and works in Gothenburg where he runs Studio Oyama. He holds a master of arts and crafts from HDK and has also studied ceramics at Capellagården and Aichi Prefectural Seto Yogyo School, Aichi, Japan. He has exhibited at Gothenburg Museum of Art, Design Museum in Helsinki, Wanås Konst, Embassy of Sweden in Tokyo and Röhsska Museum. In 2019 he received the Sten A Olsson Cultural Scholarship and in 2022 the Ulrika Hydman Valliens Foundation Scholarship.

Thanks to: Tore G. Wärenstam Foundation, Swedish Arts Council, Region Jönköping County, Värnamo Municipality and Vandalorum's partners: Hamrin, Liljedahl, Svenstig

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