Yuki Ando – How to make a Surrealistic Sculpture

Hi, I’m Yuki Ando and in this workshop I will document a week of my hand-building process through filmed daily practice. The workshop is structured into five sections, each exploring a different stage of forming a sculptural piece.

More of Yuki’s Artwork:

Workshop Steps

• Day 1: Shaping the base and forming three-dimensional patterns
• Day 2: Flipping the base
• Day 3: Constructing the foundational structure
• Day 4: Shaping the middle section of the piece
• Day 5: Finalizing the work”

At the end of this workshop, you’ll be able to consider a longer, more extended making process.

About Yuki Ando

Yuki Ando (b. 1988, Aichi, Japan) is a ceramic artist based in Shigaraki, Japan. He majored
in ceramics at Aichi University of Education, earning a Master’s degree. After that, he
worked as an instructor at Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park and was involved in the
education of many artists while working on his own practice in parallel. Through his work,
Ando strives to improve himself from within by means of mindful contemplation and
interaction with others.
Ando’s sculptures are characterized by their high-intensity pop-abstract painted surfaces
and soft, organic shapes. The artist draws inspiration from natural formations such as
limestone caves and elderly sacred trees, as well as the art of stone balancing, giving his work
a curious sense of comfort and familiarity. Using a coil-building technique, in which clay is
rolled out to form rope-like segments that are gradually built up upon one another, Ando
works intuitively to construct each piece. When painting each work Ando concentrates on
the interaction between the surface and the form of the work itself, resulting in a sense of
360-degree visual cohesiveness. Improvisation is a fundamental element of the artist’s
practice, making the process of creating each work a vast and unique space of expressive
possibility.
Ando’s work has been exhibited in several spaces in the world, including the Mitsukoshi Art
Gallery (Tokyo, Japan), Meguro Gallery of Ceramics (Mie, Japan), gallery VOICE (Gifu,
Japan) and Shirotori Japanese Garden (Aichi, Japan), Plan X gallery(Milano, Italy).
He also created product-inspired artwork for the SK-II concept store (Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia).
In the United States, Ando’s work was featured in solo and two-person exhibition at
Ross+Kramer Gallery (New York and East Hampton, NY) as well as Independent Art Fair
(New York, NY) in 2022. Ando was also selected to be an exhibiting artist for the LVMH
Culture House(Miami, Florida) in 2024.

Instagram: @yukiandoceramic