Akito Takamori
Akio Takamori (1950-2017) was a
ceramics artist who used his early life in Japan and his cultural exchanges
with people from all walks of life to inform and build his sculptures. Many of
his works are autobiographical, using his memories of Japan, the town he grew
up in, and the people he saw to create his sculptures. Of these sculptures,
many of them are sensual or deal with sensuality (perhaps informed in part by
the fact Takamori grew up near a red-light district). A good deal of the
vessels from his early career as a ceramics artist reflect this.
Takamori’s
“Untitled (Envelope Vessel)” is a beautiful example of one of his more sensual
pieces, along with his masterful use of glazes, slips, and underglazes to give
the forms of the vessel more shape and visual information. This vessel, along
with the many others he created, is made out of slabs with very soft shaping
and no real sharp features. In his vessels the clay slabs act more like a painter’s
canvas than a detailed sculptural form. This use of soft shaping is also apparent
in his later figure heavy work.
Later in
his career Takamori moved more towards creating figures, using size, body
language, and placement to further the concepts behind each figure. Often
Takamori would create a series of figures and have them relate or interact in
some way. For example, in “Ground” five ceramic figures all lay on their sides,
facing a wall. The positioning of all the figures collectively creates what
looks like a colorful mountain range instead of bodies. Because the viewer
cannot see the faces of the figures, it becomes more about the positive and
negative shapes of the figures and less about who they are.
In
Takamori’s “The Laughing Monks” the faces and identities of the figures are
very important, unlike in “Ground”. The figures, both elevated, similarly
dressed, and very similar looking seem to have some sort of tension between
them. They have their backs to each other, as far away from one another as the
room will allow. Both figures faces are twisted into a grimace, as if they
cannot stand the presence of the other. They bring to mind the phrase ‘grin and
bear it’.