Akio Takamori

Duane Reed Gallery is pleased to present new figurative sculptures by Akio Takamori. The exhibition opens Friday, April 10th with a reception that evening 5 – 8pm, and will be on view through May 16th. Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday 10-5pm.

Having grown up in Kyushu, Japan, Takamori developed his distinguished career in the United States. A seminal figure in the ceramic arts for more than thirty years, Takamori explores themes of cultural and corporeal duality by engaging the history of Eastern and Western aesthetics. Bold form and color defines his body of work, which is highly suggestive of arcane human emotions and sensuality. Takamori’s “stage-set approach” offers a platform for his ponderous characters, which carry more narrative weight as a group in a collective memory than as individual pieces.
The various celebrations of his explorative approaches to contemporary ceramics began with his breakthrough “envelope vessels” series in 1981, inspired by Japanese printmaker Kitagawa Utamaro. In 2005, his critically acclaimed mid-career survey, Between Clouds of Memory, traveled to 5 museums throughout the US. Takamori has been recognized with numerous awards during his substantial career, including three National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship Grants (1986, 1988, 1992), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (2006), and the USA Ford Fellowship (2011). Akio Takamori resides in Seattle, WA where he is Professor of Art at the University of Washington.