Making has served as a way of conversing for Midori Goto.
Making has served as a way of conversing for Midori Goto. With a visual artist mother who experienced the world without sound and a musician father, Modori found her own voice in gestures and the act of creating. In Muscle Memory, opening at China Heights Gallery on Friday, 8 August, this language becomes form, bringing together pieces shaped by memory and intuition.
Her process has been gentle and deliberate, drawing on instinct. Each piece springs from comforts such as the ritual of making with her family, the familiarity of the sea, and colours that are reminiscent of sweet treats. Delightful shapes glazed in playful pinks, creams, and blues, echoing nostalgia. She trusts in slow unfolding, letting pieces rest until they feel ready, gathering meaning through time.
Muscle Memory is a gentle journey, with each piece a tactile manifestation of moments and places that have been passed through. The pieces offer a quiet handover, an open space for play, for memory, and for making. Through this show, we are extended an invitation to explore, the urge to create, or simply to pause and leave you with curiosity.
To begin, could you share a little bit about you and how you’ve become the artist you are today?
I would say I’ve always been doing this, making things since I can remember. Both my parents are artists. Mum is a visual artist, my father met my mother whilst playing bass / vocals for his band in Brixton. The irony that my mother was born profoundly deaf so couldn’t hear his music always interested me, yet Mum being deaf probably plays a crucial role in where I am today. Growing up it was clearly her form of communication and that itself felt normal to me. We spent the majority of the time not talking but making things, or I would watch her paint, draw or glaze ceramics with her. I guess it ties into the show title Muscle Memory in itself really.
I’m curious to understand what kinds of ideas and influences you notice yourself returning to in your practice.
I always return to the same shapes no matter what my intention may be, same colours, using them to show feelings or moments. There’s two works in the show, one with blue tentacles closed on the top in a reserved almost shy position, the other has open red tentacles at the base showing opposite emotion, maybe confidence or vulnerability and subconsciously the colours of the two represent those feelings too. Sometimes I know I’m doing it, other times it takes me seeing all the work finished to decipher my own thoughts, kind of like reading an old childhood diary. Sometimes it’s funny, sweet, innocent, or sometimes it’s sad. I always return to the comfort of shapes we typically see by the sea or in the ocean, I guess growing up by the water it’s always been a comfort. Under the water, I feel close to my mum in the sense of auditory silence and I think as humans we all share this love or understanding and connection to the water in some way shape or form. It’s natural and a universal language I always return to.
Many of your sculptures seem touched by the sea, with hints of oceanic qualities present in them. Could you share how these forms began to appear in your work and what draws you to explore them?
I was selected into Dulwich High School of Visual Arts and Design. I remember knowing I had to make a portfolio. I brought in a few drawings but it was a Blu Tack sculpture of a blue ring octopus sitting on a mountain of balls that sealed the deal. It was really detailed. I remember spending hours on it, hyperfixated on mainly rolling little balls. I painted the blue rings and yellow skin with acrylic. People often say they see coral in my work, and although for me it isn’t ever coral as much as I can see it too I think we always look for things that feel nostalgic or familiar. Undeniably my sculptures are touched by the sea and although I wouldn’t exactly say it’s my main inspiration, it’s my comfort. When I’m feeling whatever way while making I always return to those forms, a lot like humans will go down to the water during all kinds of emotions, it pulls you there, helps you contemplate or concentrate.
The colours in your pieces often have a playful energy. How do you approach the use of colour in your practice?
My colour palette has always been playful, I think the colours play into lollies, ice creams. I always refer to my glaze colours as a food. There’s this speckled white glaze I often use which in my mind is 100% cream with vanilla bean. Bubblegum pinks. I don’t entirely understand what the colourful obsession is but I know that when I stray from it and try anything different I hate it, it feels too serious. I love the playfulness of the colours, my four year old son does too. I call my studio space my Willy Wonka factory and above all else it makes me happy, which is good.
The title ‘Muscle Memory’ has an association of drawing upon the past to do things with instinct. Could you expand on what those words mean to you?
I think it is exactly that, doing things with instinct. At times I can get overwhelmed in trying to think of what ideas or message I’m trying to show through a whole body of work, that feeling led me to the show title. It’s a play on the fact that a lot of what I make happens over long periods of time, with ceramics there’s never a quick result, it’s a 4 step process that can end up being 20, a lot of the times works will sit in my studio for months before even being glazed or put in a kiln. When I made the form I could have been in one moment in my life compared to when I came back to it, so really it became this narrative in my head that all I’m actually doing is expressing myself through muscle memory, shapes and colours.
For this upcoming show, can you share a bit about the works and ideas you’re bringing together?
Muscle Memory has a lot of works in it, some from last year that only recently got glazed, and others more recently made. All the works have coordinates as titles, places and locations that have meaning to me. I guess putting all the works in one space feels like the placement of different moments, memories and experiences in my life that have brought me here and come together to shape me, in one room.
What are you most hopeful people might carry with them from encountering this particular body of work?
I hope to take up empty space, filling it with a sense of playfulness or curiosity. Exploration. Inspiration. I feel like art is a neverending baton race, constantly handing over the stick. I hope it can inspire more creativity or even just the want to go grab a slab of clay. The world moves through art and it’s so common people say they’re not an artist but after a few questions you can find something they do that is 100% art, we should all do more of it.
Finally, if this body of work was soundtracked by a song, what would it be?
‘A Forest’ by The Cure. The most nostalgic song for me, I remember driving to the beach through windy roads with it playing, feeling like I was in a movie. It’s the perfect studio track for me. Frankly it’s the perfect song and it never ages. What a skill, creating timeless music, timeless art. It’s been my favourite song since I was 7. I'm 27 now, I still dance and sing like a child. Muscle memory.
Words by Atia Rahim. Photos by Cybele Malinowski