TOP PAGE

Biography

岸映子 Eiko
Kishi
Eiko
Kishi

Shinsho Wo Tsumu (Forms Within) (2021)
H89 x W88 x D29 cm
Eiko
Kishi
Profile
  • 1948 Born in Nara Prefecture, Japan
  • Lives and works in Kyoto
  • 01 Exhibitions More
  • 02 Awards More
  • 03 Public Collections More

About
the Artist
About
the Artist

Like jewels embedded in ancient treasures, thousands of pebbled, colourful chamottes dot the surfaces of Kyoto artist Eiko Kishi’s (b. 1948 –) towering sculptures in clay. In fact, up to thirteen varying pigments and pastels can be found sprinkled throughout the artist’s creations. Not affiliated with any particular movement or artistic group, Kishi has long worked alone, honing her works over the years without dependence on the associations that commonly dictate artistic circles within Japan. Yet throughout the decades, Kishi has built a following within not only the ceramic avant-garde of Kyoto but with collectors and museums throughout the world, as evidenced by acquisitions of her works by over 30 public collections, thereby pioneering the equal recognition of female artists within Japanese ceramics.
Today, Kishi is widely considered to be one of the most celebrated woman artists of her generation, and her achievements have helped to trailblaze a path for other woman artists in a multitude of genres to break free from the conservative constrictions imposed by traditional Japanese society. In this light, one cannot understate Kishi’s extraordinary contributions within contemporary Japanese art.
Kishi’s creations are pain-staking testaments to the observance of the importance of craftsmanship within the making of great beauty. Her chamottes are pulverized pellets of coloured clays that are kneaded directly into the Shigaraki base clay before formation; for this reason, Kishi’s works can be incised from any angle or dimension to reveal hidden rainbows of colour underneath her surfaces. Using both slab-building and hand-pinching, Kishi first shapes a generally abstract silhouette through elongated blocks of clay. Then with the use of a ‘kanna’ blade, she striates the surfaces of the damp material, creating linear patterns that sharpen and tighten a work’s overall form. Further, Kishi meticulously pokes small holes into the coloured grogs that extend upon the entirety of her work, and using a small brush, further applies various coloured slip into each and every hole on the facades of her works. Lastly, the artist applies a transparent glaze to her surfaces. After a bisque-firing of 850 degrees Celsius, Kishi fires her works at a temperature of up to 1250 degrees Celsius during her main firing within an electric kiln.