TAKURO KUWATA
All works in the collection (2)
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Title: Teabowl
Year: 2016
Medium: porcelain, glaze, gold
Dimensions: 9.1 x 15.5 x 14.2 cm (3 5/8 x 6 1/8 x 5 5/8 in.) -
Title: untitled
Year: 2024
Medium: Porcelain, glaze, pigment, gold, platinum
Dimensions: 58 x 35 x 30 cm (22 7/8 x 13 3/4 x 11 3/4)
Born in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan in 1981. Kuwata graduated from the ceramics course of the Department of Fine Arts at Kyoto Saga Art College in 2001, and from 2002 studied under the ceramicist Susumu Zaima. In 2007 he completed the program at the Tajimi City Pottery Design and Technical Center. His works fall broadly into those that emphasize a more sculptural approach, tea bowls (chawan), and yunomi teacups and cups. In Japan, ceramics cannot be discussed apart from their relationship with the tea ceremony; they carry a penetrating aesthetic in technique and style unparalleled in other cultures. While adopting traditional techniques that produce surface effects prized in the world of tea ceramics, such as kairagi (shrivelled glaze) and ishihaze (burst stones), Kuwata adds strong, vivid colors and pop, polka-dot-like forms never used in conventional vessels, and this challenging style, which overturns the conventions of the tea bowl, has won international acclaim. Kuwata received the Japan Ceramic Society Award in 2021 and a special mention at the LOEWE Craft Prize 2018. He has held numerous solo exhibitions and taken part in many group exhibitions in Japan and abroad. His works are in the collections of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Ceramic Art, Hyogo and the University of Michigan Museum of Art, among others.
