TOMOYA SAKAI & DOMINIQUE MERCADAL
CLAY CREATIONS
MUKURI
Japanese designer Tomoya Sakai found pottery while at the Nagoya University of Arts
in 2013, where he was studying to become a teacher. He graduated with a major
in ceramics and after just a couple of years working in schools Sakai quit his job to return to the potters of wheel of his own student days.
“I couldn’t forget the pleasure of making pottery and quit teaching after two years,”
he explains. “Then I became a professional potter.”
SUN
He uses a wheel to throw the clay and works with the spinning movement to create
his sculptural vessels and pieces. He enjoyed the power he has over this malleable material, creating shapes with the slightest movement of his hands and his tools.
“I throw clay on a pottery wheel and spread it vertically with my hand,” says Sakai.
“I am always fascinated by the feeling of tension, the centrifugal force,
and the touch of clay changing its shape in my hand.”
FOREST
The pieces included in the Cluster Crafts online exhibition
and in the Cluster online store are part of a collection called Japanese Onomatopoeia and are representative of Sakai’s ceramic style:
bold colours, brave shapes and geometric silhouettes.
“Colour is like fashion to me. The impression of the work changes depending on the colour. I'm experimenting with colours
to see how the impression changes.”
GUSA
GYORO
Sakai creates pieces that are inspired by the visible world –
found objects, nature and architecture, but also draws inspiration
from the subconscious and hopes that his work
draws on a sense of nostalgia.
“Important memories are slipping away into the realm of unconsciousness because of the Information Age,” he explains. “I am searching
for those unconscious images in mind, using clay and a potter’s wheel.
I suppose all of us share these images. Hopefully my works will lead viewers of art to recall these important memories they have already forgotten.”
Sakai believes that the aesthetic of his work is the product of all his lived experiences.
“All the events that have built my personality take shape in my works.
So, they can be regarded as my essence, my life itself.”
Where Sakai’s work is structured and geometric,
the work by this second Cluster ceramicist is inspired by the organic shapes of the living, breathing world.
Her work is also inspired by the shape of the human body, and she aims to give her pieces a kind
of kinetic effect that mirrors the movement of the flesh.
“Aesthetically, my work is situated somewhere
between the physical and the organic,” explains Mercadal. “I want to blur the lines of a clear
form through pixilation; to make it float and move.
This is my intention: to create an optical vibration
that expresses life.”
French ceramicist Dominique Mercadal
originally specialised in textile art.
For a long time her main mediums were drawing
and painting, and you can still see that her painters approach defines her ceramic work.
“I have always worked a lot on the surface
of my pieces, covering them with engravings, drawing and painting, using slipware and oxide juices,”
says Mercadal. “The roots of my inspiration
are the landscape and the body.”
With her thoughtful temperament, Mercadal talks
of how she finds enjoyment in observing nature
and trees and tries to capture some
of the peacefulness nature radiates in her work.
She creates simple, graphic shapes and uses neutral tones, textures and soft curves.
The series included in the Cluster Crafts online exhibition and online shop is based on the mythology of the fertility goddesses and comprises small sculptures that serve
as containers.
“Their bodies are truncated; they are left with buttocks, bellies, sometimes breasts. Arms become handles;
legs are removed,” explains Mercadal. “Without limbs, they cannot act. They only contain water,
the symbol of life held within.”
The work of Tomoya Sakai and Dominique Mercadal can be viewed
and purchased on the Cluster Crafts online shop.
Thank you for reading,
Katie De Klee & Cluster Team.