LOVE-2401" is a ceramic work in which the word "LOVE" is sculpted in vivid red.
LOVE-2401" (2024)
This work, selected for the "100 People 10 2023/2024" competition, attracted a great deal of attention from the judging process and received the most votes. It was highly acclaimed for its fusion of ceramics and street art, as well as for its expression of fast-moving graffiti brush strokes.
9s Gallery will present "UPDRAFT" Rising Artists from 10010 2023/24, agroup exhibition of five up-and-coming artists who attracted attention at 10010, including Kai Inoue, from Saturday, May 18, 2024 ) to June 1 (Sat), 2024.
In this article, we present an interview with Kai Inoue, an artist who pursues a new form of craft that reflects the times by incorporating fleeting movements into ceramics.
Kai Inoue graduated from Tama Art University's Graduate School of Arts and Crafts in 2024.
Using ceramics as a material, he attempts to express the physical energy and ephemeral impulses of street culture, such as graffiti and dance, in his figurative works. By layering ceramic techniques and glazes, he expresses the layering of layers and the flow of time in street culture.
Major exhibitions include "Hotteri" (Spiral Garden, Tokyo, 2022), "D-art.ART" (Matsuzakaya Nagoya, Aichi, 2022), "Art in Tokyo YNK" (Tokyo Garden Square, 2022), "pipirohiro 1st collection bomb!" (Shibuya PARCO, Tokyo, 2022), "ALBUM" (Design Festa Gallery Harajuku, Tokyo, 2021), "Crafts Department 4th Year Volunteer Exhibition: Ten Artists for Ten Works" (gallery Motomachi, Kanagawa, 2021).
Ceramic Art as a Means of Preserving Moments
HAPPY-2401
-First of all, please tell us about your works.
I use the material of ceramics to create works that express a momentary physical expression or passion.
I have been exposed to street culture all my life, as I have been dancing and hip-hop since I was a student. I realized that with ceramics, which is made by kneading clay directly by hand, I could preserve my body's movements for a long time in the form of ceramics, and this is how I have adopted my current production style.
-What was it that inspired you to start making ceramics?
One of the reasons is that my hometown is close to a pottery production area called Tobe-yaki, and I was somehow familiar with it from when I was a small child. I majored in design at high school, and we had a pottery workshop as part of the class. At that time, I felt that ceramic clay was the right material for me, so I chose to major in ceramics at art school.
ASSURE-2405
What is the difference between ceramic art and other craft techniques or so-called fine art sculpture?
First of all, I think it is the fact that I directly touch the material with my hands to create a shape. With other techniques, you don't touch the material directly as often as you might expect, like with a brush for paint or a chisel for wood carving.
In ceramics, however, you knead the clay with your hands to create the shape. Therefore, I think that the characteristic of ceramics is that it is easier to incorporate one's own hand gestures into the form than other techniques, and it is also easier to incorporate one's instantaneous feelings into the form.
Another point is that by firing the clay, you can create works that will last for a very long time. Jomon earthenware, in particular, is more than 10,000 years old and has been handed down to the present day buried in the earth. It is not as if someone has carefully stored them in a case, and I am attracted to the fact that they continue to remain without being put into a "frame" of any kind, which is also similar to street culture.
At the same time, rather than aiming for a high level of skill in the use of the material of clay, I also want to value the evaluation that the viewer forms of the finished work. In the craft world, there is a strong tendency to focus on the former, but I have chosen ceramics as a medium to preserve my emotions for a long time.
About the exhibited works
LAUGH-2401
-The works to be exhibited in this group exhibition are a series of five works that use certain words as motifs, such as "Love" and "Happy," similar to the "100 People 10" series. When did you start working on this series?
Two years ago, after I entered graduate school.
When I was an undergraduate student, I used to draw characters on ceramic clay plates. It was an attempt to use ceramics to express characters often depicted in graffiti, but as I worked on it, I wanted to think of a direction that would make better use of the ceramic clay material.
I chose positive words as motifs, focusing on the aspect that they can be left for a long time by firing. Letters are the main motif in graffiti.
In today's society, all kinds of fads and lifestyles are being consumed at an ever-increasing rate, with negative words flowing one after another on social networking timelines, and once a slander spreads, it remains as a digital tattoo. To express the antithesis of such an era, I dared to create one positive word to remain as a massive "object" for a long time.
The first work in this series was "LOVE. I have made several more since then, and have exhibited one at each of the 10010 and this exhibition. It is my base work, and it is better to have a lot of love.
LOVE-2308.
-It is also impressive that each work has a different color.
For each word, I decided on a color that projects a different image. Sometimes I use colors that have some general impression, such as "LOVE" in red, and other times I use colors of my favorite special effects or cartoon characters as references, which is a very personal experience for me. I choose colors consciously so that they will serve as hooks for viewers to recall something when they see my work.
In my own work, I apply coloring mud (mud mixed with pigments) to ceramic clay, and then color it by firing. Although the firing is almost always a one-time process, I add several layers of coloring mud and use metallic pigments that dissolve during the firing process to create multilayered colors. This kind of color deposition is another expression of the contemporary aspect of the passing of various fashions.
I want to be an embodiment of the craft of a certain era.
ALTER-2405
-What kind of work do you plan to produce in the future?
I would like to continue to produce works that reflect the current era, so I plan to continue a series of works such as the one I am exhibiting this time to some extent. I put a four-digit number at the end of the title of each work, indicating the year and month in which it was created, in order to make the viewer aware of the period each work expresses.
On the other hand, there are of course complexities in this world that cannot be expressed in just one word, so I continue to search for further expressions and motifs.
Ultimately, I would like to aim for the group of works I have created to become a kind of basic in the craft of the current era.
Outline of the exhibition
《 "UPDRAFT" Rising Artist from 100 people10 2023/24
Dates: 2024/5/18 (Sat) to 2024/6/1 (Sat)
Opening hours: 12:00 - 19:00
Opening party (invitation only): 5/17(Fri.)
Last day: 18:00 CLOSE
Closed: Sunday and Monday
Venue: 9s Gallery by TRiCERA
The Wall 3F, 4-2-4 Nishiazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0031
Access: Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line Roppongi station 10 min. walk, Hiroo station 10 min. walk
10 minutes walk from Nogizaka station on Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line
Contact: 03-5422-8370
For inquiries about this exhibition
