Contemporary Women Artists from Japan celebrates the originality and virtuosity of 36 women artists who have explored sculptural expression outside the traditionally male-dominated field of Japanese studio ceramics. The works feature motifs of flora, geology, human anatomy, and fantastical abstract forms illuminate the technical achievements and creativity of leading women ceramicists from post-World War II Japan. The exhibition runs through September 2026.
Colin Pearson, curator for Art of Asia at Phoenix Art Museum, joined “Arizona Horizon” to speak on the history of the art.
“Women have largely been left out of the tremendous artistic traditions in Japan. But this exhibition ‘Radical Clay’ really shows that they found their own way and have done some radically different things and just by simply going around all of the traditions and doing their own thing,” Pearson said.
Although featured as a collective exhibition, Pearson explained that each artist featured creates their own unique work.
“I think the biggest thing that will strike people is the tremendous variety of these sculptures and that they’re all, overuse the word radical here but they’re all radically different from each other. So I think anyone can walk into this exhibition and find something that will just pull them in and encourage them to take a little closer look,” Pearson said.
Pearson also shared some insight on the pieces featured in the exhibition. One piece entitled “Eroding Flower” by Shingu Sayaka exemplifies two of the themes that came to fruition in curating this showcase of clay art.
“One of biomorphic design where some of these artists are not just mimicking nature, they’re creating sculptures that appear to be their own lifeform,” Swanson said. “But also obsessive processes, where they do these intensely detail oriented processes to make, to construct these pieces,”.
