Exhibition | Yasuhisa Kohyama at Erskine, Hall & Coe, London

London’s Erskine, Hall & Coe gallery will host its second exhibition of the Japanese artist Yasuhisa Kohyama (Feb. 4 – 27, 2015). The exhibition comprises 26 vessels of varying sizes and color.

From the gallery:

Kohyama has played a very unique and significant role in reviving the use of the traditional Japanese ‘Anagama’ wood firing kiln, as he was the first potter in Shigaraki to build such a kiln since the Middle Ages.  He is also a contemporary master of the ancient practice of Sueki, a method that originated in southern China and which accounts for his unglazed yet glassy surface textures.

Kohyama’s work is collected internationally and exhibited widely throughout Japan and overseas.  It is included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Art and Design in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, as well as several museums throughout the Netherlands and Germany.

The announcement includes a quote from Felice Fischer, curator of East Asia and Japanese Art for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which discusses Kohyama’s process.

“Kohyama Yasuhisa works in the traditional technique, using a wood-burning kiln. Each firing takes about two weeks, one for the preperation of the kiln and one for the actual firing. Kohyama deliberately leaves the coarse pebbles in the Shigaraki clay to give texture to the surfaces. He does not throw his pieces on a wheel, but sculpts them down from large shaped blocks of clay, using steel wire to carve the sides, and giving the surfaces a unique textural quality.

“Some of Kohyama’s forms are reminiscent of a bird or a boat, perfectly balanced by the textured surface and subtle shading of colors in hues of brown and grey. One feels a great depth and vibrancy in his pieces and in the spirit of the artist who crafted it. Impression in Form makes a stunning addition to the growing collection of contemporary Japanese crafts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.”

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