Ceramic artist Naomi Ashida’s continuing series “AMETSUCHI” attracts viewers with beautiful color of blue. The outline of mountains against the blue sky draws the inspiration from the city of Kyoto where the artist lives. The series describes rainy sky and sunset as well as sunny sky. Alongside this series and other ongoing series of polar bear, both of which are lovable and sturdy functional work (including cups, plates, flower vases and candle holders), Ashida produces work with themes for the exhibitions. In “Mad Tea Party” (2009, TKG Editions Kyoto) and “Tale of the Light after the Dark” (2010, TKG Editions), Ashida presented various sculptural and functional works with the motifs and characters from “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll. She states: “the work is a result of the artist’s efforts and her conversation with soft clay”. She has recently introduced new materials and continues experimenting.

Concept:
On the theme of this exhibition, Ashida explains: “Two, twins, repetition, two of a kind, both sides, back and forth…I want to explore the existence of two same or similar things, and how the space is transformed and felt with it”. The show mainly features painted and glazed sculptural work made of a mixture of black and white porcelain, as well as color-glazed porcelain vases with two handles. The “AMETSUCHI” series described above will be also on view.

Artist Biography:
Naomi Ashida was born in 1975 in Kyoto. She graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts in 1998, and received M.F.A. from Graduate School of Art, Kyoto City University of Arts in 2000. She currently lives and works in Kyoto. She has held many exhibitions in Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo among other cities, and participated in “Mont Blanc Young Artist Patronage in Japan” (Mont Blank GINZA, Tokyo) in 2010. Ashida has been awarded in “Kyoto Togei no Atarashii Me (New Bud in Kyoto Ceramics)” (organized by Tachikichi corp.) 3 times. This is her third solo exhibition with Tomio Koyama Gallery. Her work is always available at TKG Ceramics.