Art | Carved Porcelain by Hitomi Hosono

Hitomi Hosono is a ceramic sculptor who studied pottery in Kanazawa, Japan and Copenhagen, Denmark. Her jaw-dropping work which we’re showing here apparently began with a single leaf.

“I sculpted a leaf that I found in the garden at home.  It was a simple leaf, not particularly special amongst other leaves.  However, when I started sculpting its shape with clay, I was drawn into its intricacy; the manner in which the veins were branching, how the margins ended. I found many details that I admired in this small leaf.

“It is my intention to transfer the leaf’s beauty and detail into my ceramic work, using it as my own language to weave new stories for objects.”

Above image: Hitomi Hosono, A Small Yellow Coral Box, 2014, porcelain with gold leaf interior

Ever since then she’s studied the botanical forms of leaves and flowers she found in her garden. She allows herself to be consumed by the legion of small, intricate details present in every leaf. “I look. I touch. I draw,” she says.

The key word here is “intricacy;” she has that in spades. The level of detail she’s able to wrestle from her porcelain sculptures is astounding. Every fragment of her botanical-inspired forms screams with intention, whether it’s in the finely-chiseled and painstakingly-researched anatomy of the plant or the mesmerizing colors of her glazes, which make the forms look equally organic whether they’re in cream and orange or black.

Designboom states of her work:

“the artist’s technique draws initial reference from the 18th century potter josiah wedgwood, who used thin ceramic reliefs or ‘sprigs’ applied as surface decoration to a piece. through extensive experimentation with different methods and clay bodies, two new sculptural ways to use approach emerged: one is to cover the entire surface of a shape with sprigs while the other is to construct the art object solely out of many layers of the relief, carving each with modified dental tools to add incredibly fine details.“

Born in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture in 1978, Hosono studied ceramics at the Kanazawa College of Art before taking a ceramics design course at Designskole in Copenhagen, Denmark. Following that she pursued her MA in ceramics and glass at the Royal College of Art in London, where she remains today. She’s since exhibited work in cities such as London, Paris, New York and Maastricht, The Netherlands. She was recently awarded a prize at the Jerwood Makers Open in London in 2014. The year before she was the winner of the Perrier Jouët Arts Salon Prize in London.

Her principal dealer is Adrian Sassoon, which you can find here.

More images of her astonishing work follow.

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