Shinichi Sawada

1982 - Present

Born in 1982, Shinichi Sawada has attended Nakayoshi Fukushikai, a social welfare organisation for disabled individuals in Japan, since the year 2000, where he divides his time working in the sculpture hut up in the mountains, and in the institution’s bakery. Having been creative from an early age, using sweet wrappers and other found objects to make art with, he first began with sashiko textiles but quickly moved to using clay.

Sawada is a prolific artist taking around four days to complete each piece. When Sawada works, he demonstrates such confidence and assuredness that it seems he has already envisioned how his final pieces will look. With his delicate fingers, he applies each ‘thorn’ onto the main body of the piece without showing any kind of hesitation and always works in silence. The ‘thorns’ evolved over time, becoming denser and more rounded, often in straight orderly lines across the works. He often places older works in a line next to him when working, almost like an audience or friends.

Being autistic with little communication means that his works and their ‘thorns’ remain a mystery to us. There were around twenty different motifs that he replicated each time, each one being unique in some way. However, since 2017 his work has taken on a different look, with less ‘thorns’ across the body of the pieces, and more focus on the faces. This may have been influenced by another Japanese artist who joined him in the hut called Akio Kontani. - Jennifer Lauren Gallery

Photo credit: Jennifer Lauren Gallery and Nakayoshi Fukushikai institute