Makoto Yamaguchi
A ceramic artist from Seto, Aichi Prefecture. Influenced by his father, he started his own career as a potter and honed his skills at Kasen Touen (Kasen Pottery Studio). Since becoming independent, he has created a unique style that reflects his own sensibility, producing works using traditional techniques such as Oribe, Shino, and Ki-Seto, as well as others using different Oribe glazes and a fusion of traditional patterns with Oribe, which he named “Rimpa Oribe.”
- BASED IN
- Seto, Aichi Prefecture
- WEB SITE
POINT OF VIEW
Once you see Makoto’s work, you will never forget its shapes, patterns, and colors. All of his works, from his representative Rimpa Oribe, to Shino and Ki-Seto, have an incomparable individuality. They reflect his unique path, based on what he has seen in his travels, and his inspiration from Momoyama ware (a style developed during the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, a time when the tea ceremony flourished); an original world where the timeless scenery of the past and that of the future intersect.
CRAFT ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
- 1978
Born in Seto, Aichi Prefecture
- 2000
Apprenticed at pottery studio
- 2004
Established independent studio in Seto, Aichi Prefecture, toured East Asia and Europe
- 2007
Selected for Tokai Traditional Craft Exhibition, Japan Traditional Craft Exhibition, Aichi Bunren Art Exhibition, Seto City Art Exhibition
- 2008
Selected for Asahi Ceramic Art Exhibition; awarded Mayor’s Prize, Seto City Art Exhibition
- 2009
First solo exhibition at DO LIVING ISSEIDO, Handa, Aichi Prefecture
- 2012
Solo exhibition at Daimaru Shinsaibashi, Osaka (and annually thereafter from 2013-2017)
- 2013
Solo exhibition at Ginza Kuroda Touen, Tokyo (as well as every year thereafter from 2014-2021)
- 2015
Solo exhibition at Mitsukoshi, Nihonbashi, Tokyo (and again in 2017, 2019)
Since then, he has held solo and group exhibitions every year.