Wakao Kei 若尾 経 b. 1967

Born in Tajimi City, Gifu Prefecture, Japan

The eldest son of celebrated ceramist Wakao Toshisada (Important Intangible Cultural Property of Gifu Prefecture for shino ware), WAKAO KEI has instead made a careful study of Chinese Song white ding and celadon wares. His crackled and crystalized celadon glazes that vary in color from blue to gray to white cover clay bodies of an unusually dark brown clay. It is his ivory-colored craquelure glaze, zōgeji, using ash flux made from the evergreen winter-hazel, that has become his signature surface. For his celadon craquelure glaze, which turns almost black in an oxygenated atmosphere, he sometimes further adorns it with gold over-glaze painted decoration.