'Masaomi Yasunaga: A Certain Trajectory' at Encounters, Art Basel Hong Kong 2026

8 March 2026

"By forming shapes with glaze—an ornamental surface material in ceramics—and presenting a state in which artificial acts are reduced back into something like a natural object, I attempt to express a span of time far greater than what a single human being could ever experience." - Masaomi Yasunaga

Lisson Gallery and Nonaka-Hill Gallery are delighted to announce Masaomi Yasunaga's participation in Art Basel Hong Kong’s Encounters, 2026. This presentation coincides with the artist’s solo show Traces of Memory currently on view at the ICA Miami. Dedicated to large-scale projects that transcend the traditional gallery booth, Encounters returns as a central sector of Art Basel Hong Kong. The 2026 edition presents works guided by a curatorial vision that draws on The Five Elements — a cosmological framework widely found in Asia, with each element (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water) designated to specific areas throughout the convention halls.

Yasunaga’s presentation, titled A Certain Trajectory, continues the artist’s exploration of the influence of time over materiality, and of nature over matter. The artist installs a suite of eight new vessels formed through his experimental methods which, now mastered, have elevated glaze to an unprecedented manifestation as a sculptors primary sculpting medium, almost entirely eliminating clay. Elemental in both origin and essence, Yasunaga’s glaze sculptures are born and transformed in the fire of the kiln, undergoing such significant transformation during the firing process that the artist’s intervention and ego are dissolved, making room for a return to nature.

Yasunaga considers his role as entering into dialogue with fire, embracing the beauty of chance introduced through the firing process. He describes ceramic firing as a lifelong fascination— “an extreme phenomenon harnessed for millennia, yet still existing beyond human comprehension.”

About this Encounters project, the artist states: “When we confront objects that are separated from us by physical or temporal distance, our perception becomes ambiguous. Attempting to comprehend such encounters, we may instinctively fill the unbridged gaps with our imagination and ideals. This material wonderment seems to resemble the sense of romance felt when we speculate about the greater universe, which remains largely unexplained. Creating this kind of enigma is an important virtue that I strive for in my vessels and sculptures.”

Aesthetically, these glistening sculptures are simultaneously primeval and contemporary, often appearing to be ancient artifacts of human culture newly discovered. Molten and solidified, Yasunaga’s radically conceived vessels culminate from a dynamic exchange between Artist, The Elements and the awesome forces of fire and time. Seemingly shaped and weathered by earthly forces across centuries— destabilize our perception of time itself seem to confirm the supremacy of nature’s elemental forces over the world of mankind, invite viewers into an imagined past and speculative future.

Image: Masaomi Yasunaga, Mosaic Vessel, 2026, Glaze, coloured glaze, slip, tile, silica and kaolin, 112 x 33.5 x 38 cm, 44 1/8 x 13 1/4 x 15 in © Masaomi Yasunaga, Courtesy Lisson Gallery, Nonaka-Hill Gallery