Expo Guggi 2026
For many years, GUGGI’s work has been shaped and sustained by a distinct language of materials.
His paintings have traditionally found their form through oil and acrylic on canvas, panel, or Western paper. Meanwhile, his sculptural works are realised in bronze — a material that has long carried the weight and presence of his three-dimensional practice. For Guggi, these are not merely mediums of expression; they are integral to the quiet and contemplative world that defines his deeply personal artistic vision.
With this exhibition, however, GUGGI enters a different territory for the first time — one defined by another culture, another material language, and another understanding of time.
Each two dimensional work is created in Sumi ink on handmade washi paper produced in Nara. In place of oil and acrylic, which have long supported the traditions of Western painting, ink speaks not through colour but through gradation, emptiness, and silence.
The sculptural works begin with forms carved from a single block of wood by craftsmen in Yamanaka Onsen, Ishikawa. Their surfaces are then finished using traditional Japanese urushi lacquer techniques and enriched with applications of gold and platinum powder, creating a quiet and restrained luminosity.
Wood was once alive. Urushi is drawn from living trees. Both materials continue to respond to time, deepening and transforming with age.
If bronze embodies permanence and monumentality, wood and lacquer accept change with grace and quiet dignity.
In this sense, the exhibition represents not only a shift in material, but also an encounter between two aesthetic sensibilities: the Western pursuit of permanence and the Japanese understanding of impermanence.
Yet what has changed is not only the material language. GUGGI’s work does not seek to persuade, explain, or assert. Rather, it exists to invite the viewer into a space of silence and contemplation. There is no narrative, nor hidden message. There are only shadow, emptiness, time, and stillness. Standing before these works, the viewer is invited into a quiet dialogue with oneself. The contemplative spirit of Ireland and the aesthetic consciousness of Japan.
Permanence and impermanence. Light and shadow.
This exhibition stands at the meeting point of these sensibilities. At the same time, it marks the beginning of a quiet journey into a new territory within GUGGI’s practice. Importantly, this exploration does not represent an ending or a departure from what has come before.
Guggi
15th August - 1st November 2026
Nouvelle Galerie Jean Prouvé
