March 1 - May 3, 2025
From McClain Gallery:
“McClain Gallery is pleased to announce an eponymous exhibition by the Hawaiian-born artist Toshiko Takaezu. The celebrated master ceramicist is known for her experimental approach to abstraction, wherein she explored tactility, sound, and dynamic mark-making. While Takaezu drew influence from a multitude of sources, including the traditions of East Asia and Abstract Expressionism, she pushed the boundaries of craft to develop a bold visual language that was all her own. TOSHIKO TAKAEZU features an array of signature sculptures spanning the 1960s to the 1990s.
Takaezu brilliantly merged painting, sculpture, and pottery in her closed forms, a longstanding fixture in her oeuvre. In the 1950s, she began throwing clay on the wheel and deliberately enclosing the vessels, save for a small opening at their tips. Her act of closure distinguished these sculptures from their more traditional and functional counterparts. Closed forms exist in a wide range of scales; from as small as four inches to monumental works that tower at over six feet, a testament to her masterful handling of clay. Their curved surfaces showcase layered and veiled glazes in a palette inspired by colors seen in nature – particularly from her native Hawai’i. Takaezu often paid homage to the vibrant Pacific ocean bordering the coastal town of Mākaha. Untitled, ca. 1970s, with its striking matte blue surface and black glossy band at its base, is a classic representation of her use of blue glaze. Others are atmospheric: suggestive of foggy landscapes and ink paintings. Notably, the broad and tall Untitled, ca.1990s-2000s, is grounded in ochre and washes of darker striated glaze.
Over the course of her lifetime, Takaezu experimented with different methods of composing and firing her clay sculptures, embracing irregularity. She occasionally hand-built forms by padding them into shape, such as the sizable Untitled, n.d., which engages space differently than wheel-thrown works with its meteoric and uneven body, swathed in an inky black glaze and hints of shimmery copper. Another highlight of this presentation is Untitled (Moon), ca. 1990s, a petite blue-gray orb made by fusing two clay halves from circular molds. It belongs to her series of cosmic Moons, which she began in the 1970s. At times, she veered away from the kiln, opting for an ancient Japanese wood-firing technique called anagama. Untitled, ca. 1990s, is once such ceramic, rendered languid from the fires that both solidified it and also left natural ash deposits on its volcanic and earth-toned textural surface.
Takaezu’s work will be featured two-fold in Houston this spring: Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within opens at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) on March 2nd. Elizabeth Essner, Associate Curator of Craft at MFAH, reminds us of the void inside each of Takaezu’s sculptures and their resonant meaning. Essner points out that many contain a small clay bead, transforming them into tuning bodies with unseen rattles. When the forms are activated, they produce a ring akin to a bell. Essner writes: “From the ever-present vessel form, Takaezu had found – or perhaps invented – a new world within.””
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