05/29/2025
Artist Spotlight: Ogata Kamio (1949-2022)
The unique and optically stunning marbleized ceramics of Ogata Kamio earned this Hokkaido artist membership positions in two craft societies in Japan and entry into many international exhibitions, despite his rural birthplace.
Ogata’s chosen technique was neriage in which an assemblage of hundreds of paper-thin layers of colored clay was thrown, creating a single vessel with distinct, striated, linear patterns. Ogata further heightened the effect by creating multi-ridged, folded, and pleated forms that enhanced the already optical effects of his uniquely refined neriage ware, fashioning works that completely departed from their ancient Chinese predecessors.
Ogata strove to create a rhythmic sensibility within each vessel. The many fine layers of graduated blues, grays, and whites coupled with the pleated surfaces create an optical illusion of movement thus re-enforcing the idea of rippling waves moving around or through the vessel.
“When thinking about wave patterns on the surface, what came into my mind was the black river in Kōrin’s byōbu screen, Red and White Plum Blossoms. I wanted to create a river in my works. In the process of making it, I also noticed an optical illusion.” - Ogata Kamio
#陶芸
