Exuviae

Keita Matsunaga  松永圭太

Contemporary Japanese Ceramic

Touching Stone is pleased to introduce Keita Matsunaga, one of the talented ceramists of the coming generation likely to have major impacts on Japanese ceramic art. Born in 1986 into a potter family in Tajimi, Gifu Prefecture, Japan, Keita Matsunaga received education in architecture. After graduating from the Department of Architecture in Meijo University in 2010, he studied pottery in Tajimi City Pottery Design Center in Gifu, graduating in 2013. He then furthered his pottery studies in Kanazawa Utatsuyama Kogei Kobo in Kanazawa, graduating from there in 2016.

Matsunaga's conceptual sculptures not only show unusual beauty of organic forms and textures, but more important, provoke thoughts about nature of the empty space they enclose. He developed the concept of his current work when he was building large hollow forms. While digging and kneading with his hands, he created a void in the clay in order to form the outer shape. He wondered about the empty space that became the visible structure. The process is reminiscent of an insect casting off its exoskeleton, leaving behind an empty shell (exuviae). The artist acts like a molting insect, forming an empty shell imprinted with his movements, then vanishing without a trace.

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