Tsujimura Kai 辻村 塊 b. 1976

Born 1976, Nara Prefecture, Japan

TSUJIMURA KAI is the second son of one of the most gifted potters active in Japan today, Tsujimura Shirō. Despite his relative youth, Kai has inherited from his father a great facility with the wheel and a magician's touch in his ash-glazing, resulting from his command of the process of wood-burning firings. Influenced by Momoyama era aesthetics, he creates powerful functional vessels that are both dramatic and sensual. Unlike most of his contemporaries, who closely control the firing process, Kai delights in the unexpected and incorporates chance into his creative process. His oeuvre includes, in addition to ash-glazed vessels, ceramics with translucent glaze (egarasu) as well as white slip glaze (kohiki).