Albert Yonathan Setyawan "Anicca" (TOKYO)

Mizuma Art Gallery is pleased to present Anicca, a solo exhibition by Albert Yonathan Setyawan, commencing Wednesday, June 25, 2025.

Originally from Bandung, Indonesia, Setyawan studied at the Faculty of Art and Design at the Bandung Institute of Technology before moving to Japan to pursue a PhD in ceramics at Kyoto Seika University, which he completed in 2020. Now based in Tokyo, he continues to exhibit actively both in Japan and internationally. In 2023, he held a solo exhibition, Capturing Silence, at the Jogja National Museum (Yogyakarta), followed by Transitory Nature of Earthly Joy at the Tumurun Museum (Solo) in 2024. His work is being featured in the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) in Brisbane, and he is further scheduled to hold a solo exhibition at ZENBI (Kagizen Art Museum) in Kyoto from August in 2025.

This exhibition features a large-scale installation, “Anicca: Sticks & Stones,” comprising approximately 1,000 ceramic pieces arranged across a 4-meter square space, alongside a selection of drawings.

In “Anicca: Sticks & Stones,” the artist employs a ceramics technique known as slip casting that he has refined over more than 15 years. Using terracotta as the primary material, the work is based on natural motifs of branches and stones, for which he created one individual plaster mould each. Over time, repeated use of these two moulds caused them to gradually wear down, leading to subtle distortions in the shapes they produced until the original contours were no longer recognisable. For the artist, this very process serves as a “trace of time,” an attempt at visualizing how the act of creation itself reshapes form.

“As a ceramic artist, one of the things I really enjoy about working with clay is that it has the ability to express time. It captures traces of time in the metamorphosis of its natural states and also in how it is being shaped, formed and moulded.

I am drawn to exploring the idea of ‘impermanence’ as opposed to the effort of securing a sort of permanent aesthetic quality many makers strive to achieve in their works. I am interested in exposing the process of making, how shapes are altered, changed, and even dissolved by the process of making and producing itself.” – Setyawan

The title Anicca refers to the Buddhist concept of impermanence: the understanding that all things are in constant flux.

Through the repetitive, meditative process of working with clay and leaving behind traces, this piece embodies Setyawan’s stance on finding beauty in transience and transformation, quietly prompting consideration of how we exist and engage with the world around us.

We warmly invite you to engage in a silent dialogue with the works on view.