photo: SAIKI Taku

TATARA

ArtistNAKAMURA Takuo
Year1995
Material/ Techniqueclay
Size/ DurationH40.5 × W45.5 × D39cm
Copyright Notice© NAKAMURA Takuo
Year of acquisition/ donation2003(作品購入年月日:2003/03/31)
DescriptionBorn in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan in 1945. Lives and works there.

Nakamura Takuo was born in Kanazawa as the second son of NAKAMURA Baizan, a master hand in ceramics for the tea ceremony. He began studying under his father in 1978, and learned the basics of ceramic art from him. In 1982 he researched traditional glazes at the Seto Branch of the National Industrial Research Institute of Nagoya (NIRIN), Ministry of International Trade and Industry. In 1984 he studied under Professor Aldo Rontini, the Istituto Statale d’Arte per la Ceramica in Faenza, Italy. Since the second half of the 1980s, he has been exhibiting in many solo and group shows. While carrying on the Kanazawa tradition of decorative beauty and using a method of Kutani overglaze, Nakamura explores deconstruction and reinterpretation of pottery boldly yet with a sophisticated touch.

‘Tatara’ in ceramics is a sliced sheet of clay. "TATARA" is a work using the technique of Tatara. Its characteristic is the continuity of the decorative strips of enamel colored inlay flowing from the top to the bottom. While functioning as a plate, the layered form serves to give the work its distinctive identity as a three-dimensional piece that is ‘just barely a plate.’ The work itself is involved in the spatial composition, and it was produced as something that creates the site. His idea of creating a form by means of layers was inspired by stone blocks, which he saw piled up at a harbor.

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