19. Yuki Nara 奈良祐希

Yuki Nara was born in 1989 in Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture. Hj is the 13th generation in a family of makers of the prestigious Ohi-yaki pottery, with a history of more than 350 years. He studied first architecture and then ceramics, both at Tokyo University of the Arts. He has become widely known as a ceramic artist and architect. While he exhibits as a ceramic artist at solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and foreign art fairs, he also engages in architectural design and product design and has had his own architectural firm since 2021. He consciously seeks a fusion of architecture and ceramics by incorporating elements of the unexpected inherent in making ceramics into his architectural designs as well, and conversely using the intentionality and efficiency of architecture in ceramics as well. Similarly in his exhibitions, he often works across borders by, for example, harmoniously blending the architecture of historic buildings with subtle natural phenomena, and creates unique geometric patterns inspired by the snowy landscape of Kanazawa. A pioneer in an entirely new field of ceramics, he designs his objects from an architect's perspective using modern 3D CAD (computer-aided design) system to render his pieces, which are then sculpted, assembled and fired using traditional methods. He calls his body of ceramic work “bone flower” after his grandfather famous Ōhi Toshio Chōzaemon XI saw it and remarked, “looks like bone flowers.”
Despite his still young age, Yuki Nara has already won several awards, including the Tokyo University of Arts Award and and Sciences and the World Industrial Engineers Triennale Special Prize. His work is exhibited in numerous prominent galleries and has been acquired by institutions such as the Nezu Museum in Tokyo and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, which has one of the world's leading collections of contemporary art.