Kazuhito Kawai’s quest for ugly beauty in ceramic art
Minako Norimatsu | February 10, 2022
Ahead of a show at Steve Turner Gallery, LA, Japanese ceramic artist Kazuhito Kawai discusses the origins of his deliberately deformed kaleidoscopic creations
The polychromatic clay vessels of Japanese artist Kazuhito Kawai are quite spectacular, the cascade of small, amorphous, textured forms like lava erupting from a volcano. Kawai’s path to ceramic art was far from linear. Born in Kasama, in Ibaraki prefecture, Japan, he studied at London’s Chelsea College of Art and Design, graduating with a degree in fine art in 2007. That year, disillusioned with his future as an artist, he returned to Japan with a sense of failure and spent several years in Tokyo. He recalls, ‘Having stepped away from art, I worked as a salaryman [a Japanese term for white-collar employees that has pejorative connotations, describing men who reluctantly keep on with their boring routine]. But then I applied for a ceramics course at a local college with the aim of making a living as a trained artisan. And the course was free of charge!’ says Kawai with a smile, adding that Kasama, though not as sophisticated as Arita or Mashiko, is a popular pottery region specialising in the production of tableware for daily use.
