» Concept: Text by Mikako Sawada Creating shapes with clay, glazing, and baking in a kiln. Ceramic has unique restrictions that are different from other three-dimensional art forms. Haruka Akiyama and Naoki Nomura choose these “restrictions” as indispensable elements to express their personal views. Plasticity of clay is an ideal material for them to embrace undefined dreams and impulses. The changes of colors and forms given by firing many times are the process of deepening these visions. The unique expressions of glaze that seem almost fetish are something they have in common. Glaze is originally the coating with a glass material for waterproofing and decoration. But for them, it is “painting” with color, glow and depth, and employed as an important part of sculpture. In this exhibition, they present the “vessel type” of works, instead of sculptural works that they usually produce. The vessels have been considered as functional, and put away from the artistic expressions of ceramic. The viewer, however, always reacts to appreciate the vessel with the five senses, taking it with hands and feel. Accessibility of vessel is the moment that creates a common language between the viewer and the artist. This gives the artist a strategy for “infighting” with the viewer, where I find an important possibility of the vessel type of ceramic in the contemporary art in the themes of impulse and accessibility.
» Artist Biography:
Text by Mikako Sawada [ Haruka Akiyama ] Haruka Akiyama: Born in 1986 in Kochi, Japan. She graduated from Kyoto University of Education, and received M.F.A. from Kyoto City University of Arts. She creates a clod of clay by layering the reproduced soil with fiber. Then she carves and fires it, making the natural glaze appear in the section of the layers. By firing many times, she layers the glaze as if she layered the paints, until the glaze obtains the forms and becomes a part of the sculpture. Each sculpture with the trace of movements and time resonances with the sense of life in the installation quietly.
[ Naoki Nomura ] : Born in 1978 in Hyogo, Japan. He received M.F.A. from Kyoto Seika University in 2004. In 2005, he founded TRACTORS STUDIO. He creates colorful, figure-like sculptures. Firing glaze and pigments in many layers, he creates colors like improvisation, and finishes up with painted figures. He communicates with the unexpected results of firing, which he describes as “layering colors and textures”. He creates fantastic world on ceramic, by neither leaving it to firing nor controlling the result with test pieces, but by using fire and glaze with the sensitivity of a painter of improvisation.
