Coiling and reaching for the sky
- Hiroko specialises in coil building ceramic vessels and sculptures
- The Japan earthquake and tsunami in 2011 were a turning point in her creative style
- She is inspired by flowers, aiming to capture their movement towards the sun
Growing up in an industrial city, Hiroko Nakazato longed for nature. The small garden where her mother grew chabana tea flowers became her place of solace. Sketching these flowers as a child laid the foundation for her artistic path. "My mother’s love for ceramics also influenced me greatly," she says. Following this inspiration, Hiroko studied ceramics at art college in Tokyo, where she was first introduced to utilitarian forms. Seeking to deepen her practice, she moved to Kyoto to explore ceramics as an expressive art form, where she discovered coil building as the central element of her process. "As a medium, clay offers the ideal balance between discipline and creativity: it requires steady repetition during the coiling phase, yet the final shape is never the same. This allows me to reflect my creative intention in that precise moment," explains Hiroko.
Interview
- Where do you find inspiration?
- In nature. I grew up in an industrial part of the city, surrounded by tall chimneys, yet there was a small patch of garden where my mother grew flowers. I would sit and sketch them. The shapes that nature offers are sometimes beyond imagination. Those early sketches continue to inspire me today.
- Do you always employ coil building for your works?
- I might sometimes use a wheel for a base, or build with slabs, but coil building allows me the most freedom of expression to reach my ideal. It usually takes a month to complete the shaping of a 40 cm-tall piece. And it is always a fight against time, as the clay quickly gets dry.
- What was the turning point in your artistic path?
- In 2011, I saw an exhibition by Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. Something in his work uplifted me and made me want to create art that could give others the same energy and hope. Until then, I had focused on the still beauty of plants, but from that moment, I began capturing their movement and the way they reach towards the sun.
- How do you know when you have completed a piece?
- There is intention behind every curve and dent in the form. I begin each piece with a small, 10 cm maquette, studying its balance and shape from every angle. From there, it is all about scaling up. When the finished work, down to the hue of the glaze, matches the image in my mind, I feel a sense of fulfilment.
Hiroko Nakazato is a master artisan: she began her career in 1987 and she started teaching in 1999
Where
Hiroko Nakazato
