Ceramic Sculpture
by HINODA

Free-wheeling, imaginative, humorous,
dynamic work of an important young artist

Edited by Ibaraki Ceramic Museum

Hinoda belongs to the youngest generation of artists in contemporary ceramics. At university he learned about the works of the Sodeisha group artists and other ceramists which became the starting point of the postwar “contemporary ceramics.” To someone who belongs to earlier generations, such works are usually objects of admiration and respect. But Hinoda sensed a kind of gloominess in these works, something that is comparable to Yin of the principles of Yin and Yang. Ever since, “avoiding the wetness of Japanese ceramics” has always been one of his artistic goals.
At the same time, he is attracted by the physicality, or sensuality, of clay, that is, the qualities that remind him of human bodies. Not only its tactile qualities like “yield” or “resist,’ but also its color is important to him. He came to hold strong interest in color, and has experimented with a variety of colors and patterns. These colors, prepared as a color slip, is sprayed on to the body after it is dried and trimmed. According to the artist himself, “The process is not really glazing in the old sense. It is more like painting a house’s outer walls, a plastic model, or a car.” Yet, the slip applied on his works form a well-defined structure. The first, base layer is that of slip made by mixing color into the clay used for the body. Over that base, a melting slip is applied. In order to enhance the form, he sometimes adds another layer of melting slip mixed with a color of higher saturation. At the end of these stages, the surface has a rough texture that can be almost “felt” with the eye from a close distance. He has learned through his own experience that the color and texture of a form can make it appear to be closer or farther than the actual distance. He is now aware that the viewing distance is an important factor in making ceramic objects.

The dry yellow that is used on the works shown in this exhibition is a color Hinoda started to use around 1995. He has used strong colors of an America brand on important parts to enhance the humorous forms. In creating these forms, the artist starts from ”what [he imagines] to be the center” of the form on completion. Employing the building techniques of hand-forming and coil-building, he extends the form outward in many directions. The resulting organic forms sometimes resemble a character from a cartoon. His work has a strange ligtweightness of things that have suddenly popped into existence before our eyes. Many of his works are shown directly attached to the wall, in a way that goes well with the sense of weightlessness. They are both cute and grotesque, and gaily open and cynically obstinate. In giving these forms this unique two-faced appeal, the slip applied on their surface, of the color that can be described as “Hinoda Yellow,” plays an important part. In the works of this young artist, we can recognize the great potential of ceramics as a vibrant form of visual art.


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