Sculpture / / Shigaraki / Kato Takahiko
Three Shigaraki Orbs by Kato Takahiko
Not since the late great Tsuji Seimei made objet d'art in the early 1980s has any Shigaraki ceramic artist been as prolific as Kato Takahiko. Kato has been creating engaging forms for longer than anyone after Tsuji that bring into play the grand defining characteristics of Shigaraki; those being tsuchi-aji ('clay-flavor'), shizen-yu (natural ash-glaze) as well as bidoro (vitrified drops of natural ash glaze) and ishii-haze (stone bursts). He recently fired three orbs-spheres that with each turn take on a planetary element to them. The largest is 37cm.tallx30 and is 170,000 yen, the middle is 22cm.tallx21 and is On Reserve and the smallest is 16cm.tallx17 and is On Reserve, all include signed boxes, additional photos on request. I recently wrote a brief article about Kato for Ko-e Magazine and that can be read here: http://www.koemagazine.com/2013/07/kato-takahiko/