NAKADA Masaru "SEN"

Masaru Nakada is attracting the attention of ceramics lovers as a future leader of Kutani ware. He creates works using the delicate technique of covering the base surface with engobe in a different color, carefully etching lines in the covered surface, and applying a different kind of engobe to the etched lines. This series of works, named "SEN" (literally meaning "lines" in Japanese), has been selected for various open-call exhibitions, allowing the artist in recent years to expand the geographic scope of his activities to other countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, and Singapore. The SEN series really deserves to be called Nakada's lifework.

In his childhood, under the influence of his engineer father, Nakada wished to be engaged in some kind of creative enterprise in the future. He became interested in ceramics when first experiencing overglaze painting in an extracurricular class at elementary school. He graduated from the Ishikawa Prefectural Kutani Ware Technical Institute in 1997, and became an independent ceramic artist in 2004. He currently conducts creative activities at his own studio in Kawakita Town, Nomi District in Ishikawa Prefecture.

While Nakada has so far used engobe in many colors to create the SEN series, he has not particularly referred to the orthodox style of Kutani ware. His works are distinctively different from traditional overglaze-painted Kutani ware, going far beyond the conventional concept of what Kutani ware is. Although Nakada did mainly create overglaze-painted vessels during the early phase of his career, his stronger interest in shaping over painting naturally led him to create white porcelain with kaolin. However, with a desire for variations, he began to use various techniques, such as etching into covered surfaces and inlaying, through a process of trial and error, resulting in the technique he currently uses for the SEN series.

After he won an award for excellence at the Kanazawa One Grand Prix "People, Vessels, and Encounters" exhibition in 2006, his works began to be displayed in the tableware sections of department stores in Tokyo. Visiting a gallery in Minamiaoyama while in Tokyo, he hoped to have his works exhibited at that gallery, and he has since been more highly motivated to create "artworks." His selection for the Kikuchi Biennale in 2011 focused special attention on his SEN series.

The prominent features of Nakada's works are their sophisticated sharp forms, and bright and matte uniform coloring. SEN 2012, Nakada's signature work, features lines carefully etched in black engobe covering the white base, while SEN 2015 and SEN 2017, with forms appealing to contemporary taste, are characterized by engobe in the "five Kutani colors"--red, green, purple, yellow, and deep blue--indicating a shift in Nakada's focus to an integration between the traditional and the modern.

I look forward to seeing how the SEN series, Nakada's lifework, will progress from now on.

MORI Koichi, Art Critic; Executive Director, Japan Ceramic Society