Often considered to be one of the leading pioneers of abstract porcelain, Shigekazu Nagae (born in 1953) has elevated the technique of slip-casting into a mode of the avant-garde.

Porcelain slip-casting is commonly associated with the mass production of utilitarian vessels, yet the artist has valiantly fought to transcend such stereotypes by creating wildly original and unique works of art that manipulate the distinct qualities of both slip-casting and kiln-firing. In fact, it is the intensity of Nagae’s kiln fires that help mould, shape and curve his delicate white porcelain, thereby giving birth to sleek and natural silhouettes previously unimaginable in the context of porcelain clay.

Nagae’s international recognition has grown in recent years, with acquisitions by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, totalling 21 other museums throughout the world. Also collected by leading institutions such as the Musée national de Céramique-Sèvres and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among others, vibrant is Nagae’s stature in the world of porcelain.

The artist’s seductive curvatures are a result of natural kiln effects that serendipitously warp the porcelain into original forms that cannot be realised otherwise. The resulting work is a virtuosic display of abstract elegance, almost paper-like in its thin, seductive movements, in essence inspired by and symbolically recreating the natural beauty of the hills, rivers, and blowing winds of the artist’s home town of Seto, Japan.