Shiro Tsujimura, Echoes of Nature, Artistry of Self

Axel Vervoordt Gallery is pleased to present the solo exhibition Echoes of Nature, Artistry of Self by Japanese ceramicist Shiro Tsujimura. The exhibition features about twenty previously unrevealed Tsubo, or large vases, in the Karnak Gallery, which seeks a balance between monumentality and a silent, raw industrial atmosphere. Tsujimura’s decidedly unique works infuse freedom, playfulness, authenticity, and a sense of self-confidence. The exhibition coincides with the newly published book, Shiro Tsujimura. An Art of Living (Flammarion, 2024), which features essays by Alexandra Munroe and Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Tsujimura’s sculptural vases originate from the raw soil around his home and studio, in the outskirts of Nara, Japan. “The clay I collect in nature is exceptionally rough and does not stretch. It’s viscous and easily degraded. It’s too easily damaged by fire yet too resistant to it. A clay with such ‘drawbacks’ is also a clay with character. Accordingly, unique pottery can be made from unique clay, even if mistakes can occur in the process.” Tsujimura’s approach to ceramics is linked to his training as a monk and his radical independence. Instead of following typical Japanese tea ceramicist training, steeped in formalities, he’s a fierce individualist and unconventional artist. The beauty of his unique artistic language exists in its vitality, embodying the passing of time and notions of perfection and imperfection. The earth is delicately transformed into natural clay to be modelled on his kick wheel. Tsujimura’s sculptures convey a process of evolution and learning; after years of getting acquainted with the rhythm of fire in his kilns, each vase embodies its process. The artist completes the ouroboros of the earth’s gift of clay by letting his creations rest in the soil in the area surrounding his home, sometimes for years, and thus they come to embrace the patina of the changing seasons and elements. Alexandra Munroe, Ph.D., is a Senior Curator of Asian Art at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and a pioneering authority on modern and contemporary Asian art and transnational art studies. In the new publication, she writes that Tsujimura “… goes beyond unorthodoxy in the context of traditional Japanese ceramics to emerge as a universal artist of our time: original, vital, and free. [´...] it marks him as an artist of Japan’s trenchant avant-garde.

At the start of his career, Tsujimura dreamed of becoming a painter, but soon abandoned his studies at the art school in Tokyo, to begin a monastic training at the remote Zen temple Sanshoji. In 1970, he was struck by the beauty and sincerity of a 16th-century Oido tea bowl in the Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo where a Japanese philosopher Soetsu Yanagi promoted the crafts movement in Japan. The Oido tea bowl was inconspicuously displayed in the corner of the museum in such a manner that it hardly drew any attention. Moreover, no box contains a signature or note of authentication. Yet, intuitively and profoundly, Tsujimura experienced an epiphany from the bowl, feeling a spiritual connection that seemed to impart a lesson on the attitude towards life, transcending all physical aspects—beyond the shape, colour, and texture of the clay. It’s an ordinary bowl, yet perceives the entire universe, holding peacefulness, intricacy, and an appreciation for the impermanent life that he sought to embody himself. Since that day, Tsujimura decided to become a potter.

In this exhibition, the Tsubo, or large vases, are in Shigaraki, Bizen, and Iga styles. Each refers to the originating region known for its type of clay with a specific colour scheme. They are the material results of his acquaintance with different kiln rhythms, sensibilities, and techniques. Shigaraki ware takes on various shades of red or deep brown nuances during firing effects. Iga clay produces a glossy, greenish quality known as vidro (Portuguese for glass) glaze on the surface of the pieces, due to the chemical reaction when firewood ash combines with feldspar and siliceous stone during high-temperature firing. The playful air bubbles appearing in the sage glaze remind us of the moisture present in raw clay. Bizen ware is dark brown fired without glaze using oxidation firing. The finishing and colours are the unexpected effects of the kiln on the clay and the earthy spirit of using ash as a glaze. Embracing the imperfection that comprises a natural process—in line with the spirit of wabi-sabi—, none of the vases appear identical.

The round vases are constructed from two joint bowl parts, joining them together in a process like Moon Jars. In contrast, Tsujimura leaves each vase’s union visible at the belly’s center. He also creates a dynamic and irregular opening for the vase—as if infused with its first breath of life and fresh air.

Celebrated Japanese photographer and architect, Hiroshi Sugimoto, a long-time friend writes, “Tsujimura is rustic [...] in him, the coarse and the refined are in perfect balance and his sensibility is finely honed. He seems to have been born entirely in the wrong era – he lives in a new Stone Age.”

For Axel Vervoordt, Tsujimura is part of a Renaissance. “He shows us new ways to get in touch with nature, which is essential as our world seems to evolve further and further away from authenticity. He shows us the way forward, directing us toward a new civilisation.”