Seattle-based ceramic artist Akio Takamori’s sleeping women rest in round bundles on low pedestals, their eyes open slightly, seemingly observing us while we’re spying on them in their sleep. Colorful and curvy like Matisse figures, it’s as if drawings have materialized in three dimensions. (At Chelsea’s Barry Friedman Gallery through Oct 30th.)
Akio Takamori, Sleeping Woman in Red Dress with Orange Hair, stoneware with underglazes, 2013.
Titled ‘Hereafter,’ LA-based artist Matthias Merkel Hess’s first New York solo show features a roomful of beautiful, handmade, ceramic objects that replicate everyday items…ones you might choose to be entombed with if you were buried in the ancient Egyptian manner. (At Salon 94 Freemans on the Lower East Side through August 9th).
Matthias Merkel Hess, installation view of ‘Hereafter’ at Salon 94, June 2013.
“I think that’s amazing, what people can do with the hands. It’s the same, and still they make it new,” says LA-based ceramic artist Shio Kusaka, regarding the tradition of ceramic making. No two of her vessels are alike, a point proved by 127 porcelain stoneware pots on show at Chelsea’s Anton Kern Gallery. (Through June 22nd.)
Shio Kusaka, installation view at Anton Kern Gallery, May 2013.
