34.Nakashima Harumi  中島晴美

Harumi Nakashima was born in Gifu in 1950 and studied at Osaka University of Arts. He was inspired by the influential avant-garde group Sodeisha, founded in 1948 as a reaction against the traditional, functional aspects of Japanese pottery. Harumi Nakashima himself is now considered an important avant-garde ceramicist who developed a distinctive and unmistakable aesthetic within modern Japanese ceramics. Initially, Harumi Nakashima made pottery with an earthy, abstract look inspired by Picasso and European surrealists. In 2002, he changed his material from pottery to porcelain, a material in which he would excel. He creates sculptures of incredible complexity and beauty, with beautifully twisted organic forms and usually decorated with dots painted in cobalt blue overglaze that are applied after the main firing. His work is so complex that Nakashima sometimes spends months creating each piece to achieve a flawless surface and shape. Harumi Nakashima is a lauded artist who has had exhibitions around the world and whose work is included in the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Italy, and theHetchens Porcelain Museum in Düsseldorf, among others.

Proliferating Forms 13, 2020 - Duane Reed Gallery