Ogawa Machiko

Photo courtesy of the artist

Born 1946, Sapporo, Japan

OGAWA MACHIKO has been a vital force in the dialogue of contemporary clay since her arrival on the scene in 1985. First a pupil of Tamura, Fujimoto and Katō Hajime at Tokyo University of the Arts, Ogawa has furthered her early training with international travel, which included living and studying in Paris at the École d’Arts et Métiers and then in Burkina Faso in West Africa. Winner of the Japan Ceramic Society Award, she has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions at major galleries and museums throughout Japan. Some work resembles cracked ice, while other vessels have a volcanic, scorched earth appearance and others still resemble geological rock formations. While Japanese in origin, Ogawa’s work transcends national characterization, resonating with a universal sensibility.

"Avoiding deliberate primitivity, yet inspired by a sense of liberation from the narrow, hallowed strictures of lifelong training in the use of wheel and kiln, Ogawa does not so much use clay to achieve self-expression as make herself the means through which the clay reveals its inner strength, a process that she sees as one of self-discovery, an interjection of traces of humanity into evocations of the earth’s geologic cycles.”

JOE EARLE, former head of the Asian art departments at Victoria & Albert Museum and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Selected Museum Collections:

Aichi Prefectural Ceramics Museum, Japan
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
Baltimore Museum of Art, MD
Brooklyn Museum, NY
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
Musée Tomo, Tokyo, Japan
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura and Hayama, Japan
Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan
Musée National des arts asiatiques, Guimet, France
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
Rakusui-tei Museum of Art, Toyama, Japan
River Retreat Garaku, Toyama, Japan
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA
Sōgetsu Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Suntory Museum of Art, Toyko, Japan
Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Japan
Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Japan
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Japan
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT