Ogawa Machiko and Radical Clay featured in Honoho Geijutsu

"Since her arrival on the ceramic scene in 1985, Ogawa Machiko (b. 1946) has been a vital presence in the world of contemporary clay. Influenced by her teachers—both Living National Treasures—Ogawa also drew inspiration from her travels, which included living and studying in Paris at the École d’Arts et Métiers and accompanying her anthropologist husband to Burkina Faso in West Africa for nearly a decade. At each juncture, Ogawa made a careful study of her surrounding environment—both cultural and physical—and channeled these experiences directly into her work. This has allowed her to create works that, while Japanese in origin, nevertheless possess a universal appeal that transcends traditional national and temporal boundaries.

A true master of the ceramic medium, Ogawa incorporates a wide range of techniques and materials to create both functional and sculptural works that capture her unique interpretation of the natural world. Some of her work is exceptionally naturalistic boulder-like sculptures of unglazed porcelain with fused crystallizations of molten cracked glass glaze. Others resemble cracked geodes, their interiors revealing gleaming crystals. These elemental works appear as if unearthed from a quarry and evoke both the crater-filled surface of the moon and sparkling celestial bodies. A longtime collector of rocks and minerals, Ogawa fittingly equates the joy she feels from her creative process to that of a miner who, after years of excavation, finally discovers a vein of ore.

In addition to her powerful sculptural works, she also creates masterful vessel forms that, with their indecipherable incised geometric designs and torn, textured forms, seem to have been recovered in an archeological dig. The rich red tone of these vessels is inspired by the Ogawa’s time in Burkina Faso, whose famously iron-rich ‘red earth’ permeated the artist’s spirit.

Ogawa is one of the most celebrated ceramic artists today, male or female. She won the Japan Ceramics Society Award in 2000 and their Gold Prize in 2018. It is no wonder, therefore, that she has already been the focus of two major Japanese museum retrospectives. Her work can be found in the permanent collections of over 30 major museums on four continents."

-Joan B Mirviss LTD