Takeuchi Breaks the Mold

Although the temptation to take a hammer to their work in times of frustration is often strong, most artists have resisted. Takeuchi Kouzo, on the other hand, uses a hammer regularly to create his art.

Takeuchi found his style by accident, as he explained during an Oct. 9 event organized by the Ceramics Program at Harvard’s Office for the Arts (OFA). Once, after firing a piece of porcelain, the Japanese artist found that part of it had broken off in the kiln. It was at his mother’s mention of its uniqueness that he developed the idea of simply using a small hammer and chisel to break his fired pieces, giving them a distinct imperfect look.

Takeuchi’s work is currently featured at Keiko Gallery, a Boston store owned by Keiko Fukai that showcases fine handcrafted Japanese art, and will remain on display until Nov. 9.

Takeuchi’s works are starkly white pieces, made of glazed porcelain—a rarity in Japanese porcelain because of their lack of color. Takeuchi experimented with different paints before settling on white, and his sculptures actually use their clean, humble, and elegant blankness to represent traditional values of Japanese art, as the artist explained through a translator.

Fukai, a gallery owner involved extensively with Japanese art around the world, saw a Web site featuring Takeuchi’s work after he had a solo exhibition in a small museum. She was immediately struck by its beauty, as well as its emotive possibilities.

“I like very clean, very sophisticated, modern ceramic sculptures,” she said. “But I can also feel the emptiness of the pieces. They’re not just modern-looking.”

Takeuchi describes his work as following two different philosophies: “munashi-i” and “wabi-sabi.” “Munashi-i” evokes a feeling of passing time and the emptiness and nostalgia that ensue, while “wabi-sabi” is the core philosophy of Japanese art that touts imperfect beauty.

“It is hard to understand this philosophy without having worked with Japanese art,” Takeuchi said.

Yet even for those who are not familiar with Japanese art, “wabi-sabi” seems a fitting description of Kouzo’s jagged-shaped porcelains.

Having graduated from the Tajimi Municipal Ceramic Design Institute in Gift Prefecture in 2003, Takeuchi, now 30, was inspired by the Mayan ruins that he once studied in school. In his studio, he began to create large pieces made of many rectangular, hollow tubes. But he could not get past that phase.

“Before all of this, all I had was a perfect square. It was too perfect. I couldn’t move on. I had this idea inspired by the ruins, but I didn’t know how to reach it. And then I broke it.”

With controlled technique, but giving little thought to pattern or symmetry, he hopes to evoke the hidden beauty of the time-worn Mayan ruins.

During the workshop, Takeuchi not only chiseled a previously untouched porcelain block for onlookers, but also threw a small cup and large bowl on a potter’s wheel. While working, he offered general words of wisdom to those watching him, but remained humble as well.

“In the past, you may have had famous visiting artists,” Takeuchi said. “I’m just new and emerging and I may not do as good of a job as they did, but that will give you courage to do a better job than me.”