Francine Seders Gallery: David Kuraoka

DAVID KURAOKA

David Kuraoka was born in Kauai Hawaii in 1946. He is a graduate of San Jose State College (M.A. 1970-71) and is currently professor of art and head of ceramics at San Francisco State University. Kuraoka maintains studios in both San Francisco and Kauai. Recently his work has been included in Collective Visions 1967-1997 at the Honolulu Academy of Arts (1997), Americans of Japanese Ancestry in Multicultural Hawaii organized by the Japanese American National Museum, Hawaii and touring to Washington DC and Japan (1999), the Schaefer International Gallery at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center (2001), and Showcase 2 at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco (2001). Kuraoka’s work has been collected by the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, the College of San Mateo, the Rotterdam Modern Museum of Art, Utah State University, and by Hilary Rodham Clinton for the White House.

Most of Kuraoka’s pitfired pieces have the form of a vessel although they are completely sealed. He begins his work on the wheel but then manipulates and burnishes the piece to erase its signs and find the most desirable shape. Kuraoka has said that he takes his time finding the form because he has so little control over what happens to the surface of the piece during the pitfiring where the combination of wood ash, rock salt, and copper carbonate give the work its mottled white, red, and black pattern.

November 5 - 28, 2004
Recent Work

David Kuraoka maintains studios in his native Kauai and San Francisco where he teaches at San Francisco State University. He has recently had work included in invitational exhibitions at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Art, and the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco; the Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center in Honolulu mounted a solo show of his work in 2003. This will be Kuraoka's first full scale show at the Seders Gallery.

Kuraoka is best known for his pitfire sculptures characterized by their bold organic form and smoky color. These works celebrate their earthy origins. Kuraoka starts the pieces on the wheel but finishes them by hand. At one point in the process he turns them upside down so that the base forms a thick cap where one would expect the opening of the vessel to be. They are dried and burnished before firing in a large pit filled with sawdust, rock salt, copper carbonate, and wooden logs. The atmosphere of the pit creates the cloudy red, brown, and black markings characteristic of pitfire pieces. Kuraoka enjoys working with a variety of materials, adapting his formal sensibility and work process to explore the possibilities of other media. He has recently been collaborating with a California foundry, translating some of his pitfire pieces into bronze. In this material, the forms take on a weight and sensuousness unlike their clay predecessors. Kuraoka is using the earthiness of the clay and the unpredictability of the fire to aesthetic advantage in his pitfire pieces. In the celadons, he is responding as much to the Asian vessel making tradition as his materials. There is a pleasing coolness and restraint in these pieces that contrasts nicely with the heat of the pitfire works. Approximately thirty works completed within the last five years will be included in the show.

David Kuraoka will discuss his work at Seward Park Clay Studio on Friday November 5th at 7:00 p.m. and lead a walk-through of his exhibition at the gallery Sunday November 7th at 2 p.m.

* Clay *

* Clay * Slabs

* Bronze *

*** Celadon ***

(please note that color of
slides is NOT true)