Kikuko Kohno / Ceramics / 4 Inch Plate / Various Musical Instruments

• Materials – Porcelain, inlay design
• Dimensions – 11cm x 1.5cm / 4.3inch x 0.6inch
• Stain and dirt can be removed by rubbing with a melanin sponge

Kikuko creates porcelain tableware, carefully shaped on the potter's wheel. She then draws on the surface of clay, and inlays color into the lines of the drawing. The color is then wiped away—creating a beautiful design with fine, intricate design work with hard, sharp edges that can be difficult to reliably replicate in any other way.

Kikuko Kohno was born in Nagasaki, Japan, a city with more than 400 years of history in ceramics and art. Her family owned a hotel, so she grew up surrounded by the beautiful tableware and art used in the hotel daily. In Nagasaki, there was a long-standing festival where the locals become performers, creating a world of brilliant, rhythmic and fantastic–one after another. This inspiration stayed with her. Kikuko went to Tokyo at 18 to make her debut as an illustrator. Later, she studied traditional music and performance art at the Cuban National Dance Company in both Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo. After returning to Japan, she moved to the countryside near Tokyo. Currently, she continues her performance art, painting, and pottery-making activities where all the stories of her imagination and lived experiences coexist. 

Read more about Kikuko Kohno in our Conversations with an Artist series.