Pottery #6 - Ceramic Art of Mitsuo Shoji

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We're lucky to own a couple of ceramic art pieces by Australian based Japanese artist Mitsuo Shoji.


Here's a quote from the National Gallery of Australia, about Shoji's work that they have in their collection (see image at the bottom of this post):

"Mitsuo Shoji's work, like that of a number of Japanese ceramicists, encompasses both functional and sculptural objects, united in an approach to surface decoration. His repertoire of design ranges from gestural brushwork in the traditional Japanese mingei tradition, to black-fired works with torch-fired decoration of gold leaf and, more recently, works with formal geometric decoration of coloured clay inlays. Using the square, the circle and the triangle, the design of this large vessel is a synthesis of Shoji's investigations into the relationship between volume and surface. It reveals his interest in the marks of human intervention in the landscape, scarification and the tradition of the Japanese tattoo. Like these tattoos, which envelop the body and cannot be fully revealed at any one time, the totality of Shoji's web-like decoration on a three-dimensional form can only be sensed and partially glimpsed. Its lustred triangular sections shift in and out of reflectiveness as one handles or moves around the object, engendering a sense of close involvement with the object and its structure, function and materiality."

Here's the first one:

And a group of images of the second one:

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Mitsuo Shoji

Gaman I - Tattoo, 2000

Ceramic vase
National Gallery of Australia

Coil-constructed stoneware with gold and silver foil and coloured clay inlay

85.0 h x 40.0 w x 40.0 d cm 

Purchased 2000

Accession No: NGA 2000.584

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