73. Nakada Masaru 中田雅巳

Masaru Nakada was born in Kawakita, Ishikawa perfecture in 1977. He trained at the Ishikawa Kutaniyaki Technical Training Institute where he graduated in 1997. His work fits within the traditional concept of functional ceramics as tableware, vases and chawans and other items for use in the tea ceremony. Although he is proficient with the potter's wheel, resulting in beautiful, elegant forms, he has also mastered the difficult technique of slipcasting. Slipcasting is a molding technique for the mass production of pottery in which liquid clay or porcelain is poured into a mold. It is used for hollow forms that cannot be made on the potter's wheel. The technique was transformed into an opportunity to create abstract sculpture, of which the works of Sueharu Fukami (see No. 26) and Shigekazu Nagae (see No. 65) are the best-known examples. Masaru Nakada is not an outspoken sculptor, but within the requirements of applicability and functionality, as his tableware shows, he continues to search for new forms, designs and decorative techniques for objects that could enrich everyday life, but which are usually unimaginatively designed. The designs in his SEN (line) series, all made on the potter's wheel, are therefore extremely elegant and refined, adding that extra dimension to the experience of objects that surround us every day. Since 2019, however, Masaru Nakada has also added slip casting to his repertoire, and this allows him to create free and abstract forms, the surface of which he can make the most of for the particular form of decoration that can be called characteristic of him. He covers the object with a mixture of enamels and pigments on the surface, and with a metal rod he then engraves the surface with numerous thin, straight lines. After engraving the decor, he puts a color, red, yellow or blue, in each line, giving an illusion of depth. It is a very meticulous and time-consuming process that results in stunning optical results. And although Masaru Nakada belongs to the younger generation of contemporary Japanese artists and is inspired by the Japan of modernity and high-tech, the patience and precision with which he carves countless lines into his works is in keeping with the time-honored Japanese values of patience and concentration to achieve perfection. Masaru Nakada has participated in numerous exhibitions and has won many awards, including those of the International Ceramics Festival Mino, the 4th World Ceramics Biennial and the Master of Modernity Tenton Exhibition Prize of the Bavarian States.
Masaru Nakada's work is in the collections of the Ibaraki International Museum of Ceramics and the Neue Sammlung in Germany.