Yasuhisa Kohyama & William Wilkins

About

Kohyama has played a very unique and significant role in reviving the use of the traditional Japanese ‘anagama' wood firing kiln, as he was the first potter in Shigaraki to build such a kiln since the Middle Ages.  He is also a contemporary master of the ancient practice of Sueki, a method that originated in southern China and which accounts for his unglazed yet glassy surface textures.  His works are inspired by ancient Japanese Shigaraki, Jomon and Yayoi ceramics, and are collected internationally and exhibited widely in Japan and overseas.  They are included in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Art and Design in New York, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Wilkins, a British painter working in Wales and Venice, creates pictures which focus on luminosity and opacity.  Among other subjects, Wilkins has made still life painting a focus throughout his career, particularly on ceramics.  He has painted the work of Lucie Rie, George Ohr and, most recently, Yasuhisa Kohyama.

Wilkins’s new paintings in this show are based on six ceramics that Kohyama lent him.  These ceramics will also be on display.

A catalogue accompanying the exhibition will include an essay by Emma Crichton-Miller.