Kazuhito Kawai

Kazuhito Kawai’s brightly colored ceramic vessels express a sense of mystery and intrigue. His work is characterized by dynamic colors and shapes, irregularity, ugliness, grotesqueness, and fragility. Kawai uses non-traditional ceramic-making tools such as needles, tea strainers, and mesh food covers to give texture to the clay, creating densely layered sculptures that appear to be frozen in dripping, oozing, or melting states.

Kawai’s works are inspired by his identification with Japan’s “lost generation,” a group that experienced economic stagnation and social dislocation during the 1990s and early 2000s. His pieces allude to despair with their chaos, irregularity, collapse, and fragility, yet their bright and lustrous colors also serve to mask it. Kawai graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Arts (UAL) in 2007 and later obtained a degree in ceramics from Kasama College of Ceramic Art (Ibaraki) in 2018. He has exhibited his work in Japan and overseas, including Hong Kong, Brussels, and Los Angeles.

Through his work, Kawai pushes the boundaries of ceramic art by departing from traditional philosophies like wabi-sabi and embracing complexity and collapse. His ceramic vessels offer a unique and highly expressive approach to the medium, inviting the viewer to contemplate the tension between form and function, tradition and innovation, and beauty and ugliness. Kawai’s multilayered works are a reflection of the time axis of a dialogue between himself and the clay, revealing his inner self and creative process.

Kazuhito Kawai (b. 1984 in Ibaraki, Japan) studied contemporary art at Chelsea College of Art in London. After returning to Japan, he studied ceramics at the Ibaraki Prefectural College of Ceramics. He has been exhibiting in Japan, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Brussels, among others. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Hold me close, a grain at a time, KOTARO NUKAGA, Tokyo (2022, solo); I Gotta Feeling, Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2022, solo); Universes 5, The Hole, New York (2022); The Fourth Dimension, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Tochigi (2022); Kiaf SEOUL, Steve Turner, Seoul (2022); Riding for a Fall, Sokyo Lisbon (2021, solo); and Like A Virgin, Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2021, solo); Untitled Art Miami Beach, Steve Turner, Miami (2021); among others. His work is part of the prestigious Takahashi Collection, one of the most important collections of contemporary Japanese art. Kawai currently lives and works in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.