Art Porcelains Japanese Chandeliers
Posted by craft on
January 20, 2009
Nearly 100 years after Duchamp’s Fountain Moriyasu (a graduate of University of Washington’s Ceramic & Metal program) meditates on this age old conundrum through small scale clay sculptures that question of the nature of utility.
Lamplight Lavis Gathering, her 2005 2005 exhibition directly addresses the matter through an assortment of fanciful, functional table lamps. The exhibit also marked the first time she combined display element with her work. Lamps were stacked on specially commissioned table, giving the installation the appearance of a furniture showroom.
In that handicraft project spacious studio that’s just a couple feet from her kitchen door, Moriyasu fires low fire white clay at medium fire, which makes the pieces stronger while giving them porcelain look and feel
Moriyasu also uses a lot of under glaze on unfired craft clay, allowing her to approach the work in painterly manner, “The way the glaze soaks into clay is like how watercolors soak into paper,†she explains.
Moriyasu created more precisely on her craft of Lady Portraits with details such as like eyelashes, hair wisps, and necklaces. Lady Portrait is the small keepsake medallions of sweet faced woman.
When Moriyasu starting work on her craft project’s creature of Floating World series, she was thinking about expressions of absurd optimism, namely travel fantasies and idealization of heaven. Floating world series is a 3 dimensional take on traditional Japanese woodblock ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) the several tiered wooden chandeliers are arrayed with ceramic monkish figures and landscape details such as Mount Fuji like mountains and windblown trees. Unlike the lamps, the chandeliers don’t emit light. Instead they’re lit to cast shadows on the walls, generating yet more depictions of ephemeral, intangible floating worlds.
Moriyasu’s first permanent public commission opens April 2008 at the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle.
