91. Ogawa Machiko  小川 待子

Machiko Ogawa was born in 1946 in Sapporo, Hokkaido prefecture. She studied at the National University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo and then also at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Appliqués et des Métiers d'Art in Paris and finally in Burkina Faso, West Africa. In her work she is inspired by her travels and particularly her stays in Africa and South America. Also her interest in fossils, stones and minerals is reflected in her rock and boulder-like sculptures made by forming shapes from blocks of white porcelain clay and fusing them with transparent, crystallized glass glaze.

Even as a child, she discovered she was fascinated by the raw beauty of minerals and rocks metamorphosed under the influence of heat and pressure, a charm that she believes can be found in archetypal form in porcelain clay and glaze.  Ogawa Machiko's works reflect the layering and fissure surfaces also seen in metamorphic rocks, as much as it is inspired by nature in Africa, with a longing for the red earth and the primal force she experienced there.  In her creations, Machiko Ogawa manages to connect the timelessness of Mother Earth herself with the actuality of today, like ancient fossils preserved in the ground for centuries, waiting to be discovered today.

Machiko Ogawa has received much recognition for her unique and significant contribution to art. She participated in many exhibitions at home and abroad, and received many awards including the Japan Ceramic Society Award in 2001, the 58th Minister of Education and Culture Award for Fine Arts in 2008 and the Prize of Excellence from the Musée Tomo in 2010. Her work has been acquired by major museums including the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo