Human and Animal – Breathing Life into Clay
In recent years the boundaries between the spheres of art and design, ceramics and sculpture have become increasingly blurred. Not only in Japan but also in other countries, artists are reengaging with clay as a medium, exploring its broad and varied sculptural potential. There, various elements of ceramics such as plasticity, firing method, the relation between nature and human, etc., that are unique to materials of ceramics, will be highlighted.
The exhibition explores the works of five important artists from Japan, Europe and America, presenting the vanguard of clay art that emerges from their creative dialogue with the medium.
While human and animal forms have been used as artistic motifs since the earliest of times, these five artists use the distinctive qualities of the clay medium to express a sense of speed and dynamism as well as highly realistic individual characteristics. Theybring their inner world to life as they delve into the human psyche and innate animal instincts. There seems to be a message in the eyes of these creatures as they gaze back at us.
We hope that the exhibition will provide an opportunity for our visitors to enjoy a dialogue with the lively works that the artists have created.
