Forming a Voice: 形の声 | New Sculpture by Fujino Sachiko

FORMING A VOICE
New Sculptures by Fujino Sachiko
Opening May 11, 2021

Fujino Sachiko's latest multi-dimensional clay forms challenge the viewer to think beyond petals and blossoms. For her third exhibition at Joan B Mirviss LTD, Fujino presents hybrid sculptures that take center stage in FORMING A VOICE. Her earlier explorations in both stark geometric forms and organic blooms merge to find new expression here—intricate artworks are built upon strong, balanced shapes of spheres and wedges and crowned with soft, irregular folds in velvety gray-black or gray-white. Through the laborious process of coil-building and hand-sculpting, and without the use of maquettes, the artist herself does not know the artwork's final form until the end. Through the medium of clay, her sculptures speak her voice with a powerful inner conviction. Fujino says:

"The act of kneading clay and creating shapes connects me to the thoughts and memories deep in my heart."

Fujino Sachiko (b. 1950) began her studies in the world of fashion-design in Kyoto, after which she embarked on a career as a fashion designer and textile dyer. A pottery class in the 1980s first introduced her to the ceramic world and resulted in her enrollment at the Tetsukayama Junior College, where she became the pupil of the pioneering female ceramic artist Tsuboi Asuka (b. 1932), herself a pupil of the celebrated Tomimoto Kenkichi. Drawing on her textile background, Fujino folds and tucks clay with the deftness of manipulating cloth. She gently textures the surface with matte slip sprayed through an airbrush. Her latest works are in gradations of charcoal gray or white, enhancing their evocative silhouettes. Tempting as it is to call them flowers, the artist says, "My interest in the mystery of plants has been deeply rooted since my childhood, even though my work is not a direct image of flowers."

Fujino’s work has been highly awarded both nationally and internationally. She was represented in the immensely popular traveling exhibition, “Soaring Voices: Contemporary Japanese Women Ceramic Artists” from 2007-2012; in "New Forms, New Voices: Japanese Ceramics from the Gitter-Yelen Collection" at the New Orleans Museum of Art from 2017-2018; and in "Japan Now: Female Masters" at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto, Canada. Museums such as the Faenza International Ceramic Museum, Italy; Kyoto City Cultural Museum; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art; and Yale University Art Gallery, to name a few, hold her artwork in their collections.