The concept of Qi has no equivalent in Western thinking. In Japanese and Chinese culture, Qi designates a concept both concrete and immaterial, a subtle essence extracted from baser substances, translated at the Forum into the forms of white sculptures from Motohiko Odani's
Hollow series. The works' forms embody the aura – real and spectral physical presences, transcending the dynamics of life, death and eroticism.
Apollo and Daphné enacts the metamorphosis of bodies into vegetation, JellyFish evokes water through a representation of a jellyfish, whose organism is 95 per cent liquid. The works convey a sense of slow movement, a model of anti-gravity.
Breath, vital enery and the ethereal vapour of bodies experiencing a range of powerful sensory and spiritual stimuli, are the core of Motohiko Odani's artistic exploration, rendered here through captured moments of pain or ecstasy, in a variety of different sculptural techniques and materials. Hollowed-out forms describe meandering energy flows and weightless bodies twisting and writhing under the impetus of physical and psychological energies.
These white forms, these Hollows void of air, are like hollow seashells. The exhibition space is overwhelmed by emotions linked to love or suffering. Motohiko Odani offers us the experience of awakening to new sensations.
