Ceramic Totems – “Japan 1968” Exhibition

In December 2025, on the occasion of the exhibition “Japan 1968”, Retour De Voyage Gallery presents an original series of seven totemic sculptures created by Pierre Sgamma.

Ceramics conceived by Pierre Sgamma

Conceived as a coherent ensemble, this series reflects a desire to close the year on a joyful, free and slightly offbeat note, without abandoning the depth of the sculptural gesture.

Inspired by Japan-inflected imagery, shamanism, and a form of personal mythology, these ceramic statues fully embrace a playful dimension: covered with flowers, signs and colours, the totems open wide, round eyes onto the world.

Pierre Sgamma invents a personal mythology populated by benevolent guardians, floral spirits and deities that bring a smile. One moves from one figure to the next as if through a strange and joyful tale, where the sacred finally agrees not to take itself too seriously.

Seiryū, “the Totem of the inner garden”

Seiryū feels like a dreamed porcelain, both precious and joyful.

Its body becomes a finely drawn landscape: pagodas, flowers and motifs unfold freely, forming a miniature world patiently composed across the ceramic surface, with no beginning and no end.

The eye wanders, pauses, returns. Every detail highlights the quality of the drawing, the mastery of the hand and the evident pleasure in decoration. Seiryū is not only a sculpture, but a surface to explore — an object that reveals itself over time.Its deliberately tiny eyes do not dominate the scene; they belong to it. They give the figure a gentle, companionable presence, as if it were living inside its own inner garden.

Original, warm and immediately engaging, Seiryū is a singular work that brings poetry, colour and quiet joy into a space — a sculptural companion as well as a collectible object.