Kyoto-based Sokyo Gallery, which is dedicated to exhibiting and promoting contemporary Japanese clay art, has opened a solo exhibition of Harumi Nakashima (b. 1950), one of Japan’s most celebrated and ambitious ceramicists. Known for his hand-built twisted and fluid sculptures in white porcelain decorated in blue dots, Nakashima lives and works in Ena, Gifu; his vocabulary and approach have influenced many artists working In Japan today. The exhibition, beautifully installed in the gallery, which is situated in old Kyoto, comes to survey fifty years of creative career, starting in Nakashima’s days as a student in the early 1970s, and continues throughout the decades to this day. In fact, the two newest sculptures included in the show were completed just a couple of days before the opening (below).
Nakashima has been a pupil of the famed Sodeisha Movement in Japanese ceramics from the very beginning. The movement, founded in 1948 as a reaction against the functionality, calmness, and folk-driven Mingei Movement, was meant to liberate the medium from the tradition of Japanese ceramics. As a student at the Osaka University of Arts Design, he was exposed to Sodeisha for the first time, and that has come to shape his entire creative career. Inspired by its call for non-functional forms, and for conversations with the international art movements, Nakashima developed a language that gives a tremendous respect to the plasticity and sensuality of material. He is a recipient of endless awards, and his work can be found in permanent collections of museums and public institutions worldwide.
Nakashima has been a pupil of the famed Sodeisha Movement in Japanese ceramics from the very beginning. The movement, founded in 1948 as a reaction against the functionality, calmness, and folk-driven Mingei Movement, was meant to liberate the medium from the tradition of Japanese ceramics. As a student at the Osaka University of Arts Design, he was exposed to Sodeisha for the first time, and that has come to shape his entire creative career. Inspired by its call for non-functional forms, and for conversations with the international art movements, Nakashima developed a language that gives a tremendous respect to the plasticity and sensuality of material. He is a recipient of endless awards, and his work can be found in permanent collections of museums and public institutions worldwide.
Through 35 pieces included in the show, representing the various chapters in Nakashima’s career, we learn that he studied under legendary clay artist Kumakura Junkichi (1920-85), and that in 2002, while in a residency in the Netherlands, began working with porcelain and immediately gained his signature style.
The exhibition ‘Harumi Nakashima: A Survey of the last 50 Years,’ will be open through November 21, 2020. All images courtesy Sokyo Gallery. Above one of the two recent pieces, 2020, Porcelain, H14.7 × W23.6 × D12 in. For catalogue and fact sheet.
「Soul」 Harumi Nakashima, 1971, Ceramic, H16.5 × W15.7 × D9.8 in.
[Pure culture」 Harumi Nakashima, 1980, Ceramic, H17.7 × W11.8 × D16.5 in.
「Ufufu.」 Harumi Nakashima, 1984, Ceramic, H16.1 × W21.6 × D16.5 in.
Birds with cosmos colored feathers」 Harumi Nakashima, 1986, Ceramic, H32.2 × W17.7 × D20.8 in.
「Inner myself」 Harumi Nakashima, 1992, Ceramic, H24.4 × W28.7 × D31.1 in.
「WORK – 0506」 Harumi Nakashima, 2005, Porcelain, H24 × W16.5 × D27.5 in.
[Multiplying Shape – 2029」 Harumi Nakashima, 2020, Porcelain, H10.2 × W8.6 × D11.8 in.
