Since the end of the 1980s, French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel has been inventing a world that encompasses boundless creativity, with works ranging from drawing to sculpture, installation to photography, and writing to performance. He first explored materials with reversible qualities such as sulphur and wax, and has been working with glass since 1993. His current work takes on an architectural dimension, creating encounters with gardens and historical sites through public and private commissions all over the world.
Jean-Michel Othoniel’s latest exhibition at Perrotin Tokyo features never-before-seen works inspired by chrysanthemum. The collection highlights Othoniel’s signature sculptures of spherical knots as well as calligraphic abstract paintings that represent the symbolic flower. By naming his exhibition ‘Dream Road’, Othoniel shows his romantic vision of the world and how such simple things as flowers are keys to emotions; they represent a dream road to fantasies and imagination, and a way of looking at the world and seeing the marvels that surround us. For him, what is real is a continual source of symbol and wonder.