Artist and maker Rio Kobayashi talks taste

My personal style signifiers are my thin wire glasses by the Danish brand Lindberg. If I don’t have them, I can’t do anything: I’m blind.

The last thing I bought and loved was a Japanese teapot with two handles and two spouts. I commissioned my friend, the potter Ido Ferber, to make it for me and I really love it. It’s a traditional teapot but it’s so weird. You can pour two cups at the same time, using the left handle, then the right. 

The place that means a lot to me is the part of rural Japan where I come from. Mashiko, north of Tokyo, is famous for its pottery because of a guy named Shōji Hamada – I grew up nearby. My parents built their house themselves, and there’s so much space, green and peace. My dad is Japanese and my mother is Austrian‑Italian. I think the house looks a little bit like a German fachwerk house, with exposed wood structures and white walls. But it also has a Japanese essence; it’s super-freestyle. 

The best souvenir I’ve brought home was from a recent trip to California. I went to Point Reyes and Inverness for a residency at the JB Blunk Estate – I have a show there in January next year. There’s so much nature there, and a beach that’s famous for driftwood. I didn’t want to take a massive chunk but I found three super-tiny pieces that were kind of cute. 

The best book I’ve read in the past year was also from California, from a nice bookshop called Point Reyes Books. I was looking for something super-skinny and found How To Take A Japanese Bath. I thought it was quite funny. It’s an old step-by-step guide to enjoying a Japanese bath, written in English by artist Leonard Koren, but with amazing illustrations by a Japanese manga artist called Suehiro Maruo. In Japan, a public bath is quite a big thing – I really enjoy it. But it must be hard to follow the rules – like removing debris with a net and adding an insulated cover after bathing – if you don’t know them.

The work of art that changed everything for me was a video game called Eve for the original iMac. In our house, computer games were prohibited, but my uncle from Austria gifted me this collaboration between Peter Gabriel and Yayoi Kusama. It was in English so I couldn’t understand any of the words at the time, but the music of Peter Gabriel came together with Yayoi Kusama’s paintings in this surrealistic world. It followed human history from zero through to the Middle Ages and the industrial age, and at the end was an atomic catastrophe. Then one tree comes up, like the circle of life. I had a life-changing experience playing this game. At the time I didn’t know who Peter Gabriel and Yayoi Kusama were; now I’m like, “OK, legends.” 

I haven’t thought deeply about the afterlife – I’m already overwhelmed by this life! 

My style icons are my parents. They travelled a lot when they were younger – in India, Tibet and Europe – so they picked up lots of different styles before they moved back to the countryside together. My mum had super-pink short hair and my dad had dreadlocks. When I was very young I was a little shy about it, but when I graduated from high school I started to think they were quite cool. They had their own identity and didn’t care about what other people thought, and they’re still doing it. 

My favourite gift to give people is a little hand soap that I make in the shape of a hand. My very close family friends have a 240-year-old soap factory in Austria, so they produce it for me. Rio Kobayashi Hand Soap, from £60, hato.store

And the best gift I’ve received is a glass neon light I got from Jochen Holz. We do lots of artist swapping. It’s green-based neon in an organic shape that gets bigger and narrower, and when you turn it on it goes orange. 

The last music I downloaded was “Next Levels” by King Geedorah – it’s like jazzy hip-hop. 

I have a lot of collections. The biggest is cutting equipment: scissors, knives, chisels and tiny Japanese saws that I think are quite cute. I’ve been making things out of wood for a really long time, so now I have a lot. I also have a wall of hooks by designers like Michael Marriott, Martino Gamper and Bethan Laura Wood. 

The last items of clothing I added to my wardrobe were two T-shirts by a very talented artist called Noriko Okaku. She’s a good friend of Sarah Lucas and was living in her place when she started picking up quotes Sarah was always saying and making T-shirts out of them. One says “Daddio in the Sky”; the other, “MUM SEX DAD”. On the back there’s a drawing of the Cerne Abbas Giant. 

The best way to spend £20 is on scratchcards. I’ve never won anything, but you buy the dream! 

I laugh when I video call my niece, who is almost two years old. Every phone call she shows me something new: recently she learnt how to do a “kiss” face, rolling up her lips. It’s so cute, it makes me smile all the time. 

In my fridge you’ll always find mould… just joking! I always have good soy sauce, wasabi paste and nattō, which is fermented soybeans. I usually eat it with rice, but my mum loves making nattō toast: sourdough toast, a bit of salted butter and then nattō on top. It’s super, super-good to me, but for many people it’s like, “Eek!” I also have this one hot English mustard from Fortnum & Mason, because I learnt from a friend how to make a good salad dressing, and that’s one of the essential things. Fortnum & Mason Hot English Mustard, £5.95

I recently rediscovered the band Weezer, because I went to Joshua Tree from LA with one of my friends from Japan, and we had lots of driving time. She was like, “Let’s play some California songs!”, so we played everything that could possibly be related to California, and one of the songs was by Weezer. It was such a good moment, and reminded me of my teenage times. I felt kind of pure again. 

I feel really lost if I don’t have a bicycle. I like how quickly you can get from A to B. I have a Panasonic bike that was custom-made by a friend who picked up some nice parts and created a kind of mountain bike. It looks a bit like a teenager’s bike, with a blue grip and yellow forks. 

My favourite app when I have time to kill is Sudoku. You’re wasting your time, but it’s like you’re doing some maths, so you feel kind of clever. 

I believe in life after death because it’s part of Asian culture, but I haven’t really thought deeply about it – I’m already overwhelmed by this life! 

In another life, I would like to have been a musician. My dad used to play the didgeridoo, and was quite good. He sometimes brags that he played with Jamiroquai when he was in London. The energy of a live concert, with a whole crowd of different people all focused on you, is incredible. You can’t create that kind of vibe with furniture. 

Some of my best ideas have come from having a day off. If I’m stuck, I talk to friends, have a good time and joke around. Something interesting always evolves from the jokes. 

My favourite room in my house is the only room – I have an open loft in Hackney with a mezzanine. I spend most of my time in the living/kitchen space, where I have speakers that I designed, posters for my exhibitions, an IKEA sofa and lots of plants. Usually I have a table, the Fatty Tuna dining table I created with artist James Hague, but it has been taken to The Design Museum. In Japan, fish whose names change as they get older are called “career fish”, and tuna is one of them. When it went from my living room to The Design Museum, I thought: that’s a career.  

An indulgence I would never forgo is really good sushi. In London, it’s difficult – either you pay too much money or it’s not authentic. But I could never forgo a salmon roll wrapped in nori.

The best advice I’ve ever received was “don’t think, feeeeel”, from Bruce Lee.