KAWABATA Kentaro

Solo Exhibitions

Group Exhibitions

• Anadole University Museum, Eskisehir, Turkey
• Mashiko Ceramic Museum
• City of Toki
• Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN

Many of my works are made by hand throw and bits of smashed glasses are embedded into the clay. During firing process, the grass pieces will melt and will be fused with the glaze. This will conceive water colour like very subtle patterns on surface of my works.

The embedded clear glasses are receptor like beings that connect the inner and the outer. My works often express our bodies. Therefore the glass parts mean neither inside nor outside. You can image something like a tunnel to travel around our inner world.

One day, a possibility popped in my mind that one of the components of glaze, glass may bring unexpected effect when it is mixed with the embedded glasses in the process of baking. I spent so much time before I finally found the appropriate baking time and temperature to achieve the effect I wanted. However the motives expressed by melted glasses and glaze on both the inside and outside of the piece was far better that I imagined. This came to be recognized as my signature style around the world.

In the kiln, glass particles and glaze are melt and mixed together without my hands. There is no doubt in my mind that I think it is absolutely beautiful the moment when they come out from the klin. This is why I have been working with embedded glasses in clay over 15 years.

I would like to say that the continuation of repeated creases is another character of my work. I have a hand movement as habit since my childhood. The trace of my hand movements made creases almost unconsciously on my works. I came to realized that I put (fold?) my experiences and memories into each creases. It does not matter if the memory is about great pleasure, sadness or just an ordinary day of my life. All is folded into the creases equally.