Eri Maeda is a Japanese visual artist based in Paris. Working with ceramics, she creates stoneware sculptures in vivid, surrealist colour, turning ordinary household objects into absurd, creature-like hybrids. Her work is a sustained act of rebellion — against outdated social rules, the expectations placed on gender, and the tacit codes of conduct instilled by her upbringing in Japan. That rebellion is informed by an unlikely source: her early training in branding and marketing. Having studied how images are built to capture attention and manipulate desire, Maeda turned those same tools against themselves.

In response, she invents ‘monsters’ — mischievous, satirical figures that devour the toxic messaging of a culture that never stops telling us how to behave. Like the mythic beasts of folklore, they are at once threatening and protective: incarnations of resistance and of personal emancipation. These monsters most often erupt from the most mundane of household objects. The titles do the same work as the forms: blunt, familiar words — desire, whispers — pinned onto objects we associate with routine, comfort or indulgence. Blending dark humour with social critique, Maeda works in striking colour and glossy, high-shine finishes that are uncommon in traditional ceramics, using them to seduce the viewer before revealing, up close, more unsettling details: rows of small eyes, tongue-like protrusions, skin that pools and drips like icing or wax. Her art invites a first glance as something sweet or celebratory, and a second, closer look that turns unsettling.