MATSUMOTO, Naoko (Japanese living in Boston)

Sea Urchin

 

Urchin Group
Teapots

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMAGES:        NAOKO MATSUMOTO Google Images

WEBSITE:      NAOKO MATSUMOTO  

CONTACT:    naokoyanen@hotmail.com

GALLERY:    Vessels Gallery, Boston

BIO/CV:          Naoko Matsumoto, was born and grew up in Osaka, Japan.  After she received her BA from KANSAI GAIDAI University in 1996, she came to the US.  Naoko studied ceramics under Makoto Yabe at School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Between 2002 and 2003, she was a resident at the Institute of Ceramic Studies in the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park in Shiga, Japan for half a year.  Naoko pursued the further level of study at Massachusetts College of Art as a Special Student in 2005.  She has exhibited nationally, including Clay III, Kirkland Arts Center, in 2010 and traveling Scholars, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2006.  Most recently she received an Honorable Mention in Massachusetts State of Clay exhibition in 2009.

Currently Naoko resides in Arlington, MA and she creates her works and teaches a class at Feet of Clay Pottery Studio in Brookline, MA.  She is a teaching assistant at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Her ceramic pieces are intricate and meticulously ornamented. The pieces have an air of delicate femininity reflected in their colors and decoration.

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

I am drawn to objects such as nests, shells, and skins.  They represent not only the existence of invisible life, but also the coexistence of life and death.  They also imply the flow of time.

I created a series of hornet’s nests titled “Small Cosmos” because I was impressed that hornets build their nest beginning with a fragment.  They repeat the pattern and shape over and over until the colony is complete.  Employing Nerikomi technique, which is the traditional Japanese technique of creating repeated patterns with colored clay.  I handbuilt the form of the nest by stacking the thin sliced clay repeatedly.  Hornets leave their nest a year later.  Although it is their biological action, I was moved by the fact that they leave what they have built with hesitation.

I am fascinated by the sea urchin’s shell because of its pattern, texture and color.  It has both fragility and strength.  Each piece is wheel thrown so that I can be conscious creating the inner space.  I use porcelain because it is the material which contains fragility and strength like sea urchin’s shell.  I use color porcelain slip to make dots on the outer surface to imply that the pattern and shape are made from the same substance.

I wonder why the shell keeps its beauty without decaying even after its flesh has disappeared.  What does it hold in the empty space?