By design this piece should feel very heavy, and yet the whimsical lines across the front create a feeling of lightness, like a butterfly trailing across a summer sky. This is an early sculpture by Shigemori Yoko enclosed in a wooden box titled Mudai (Untitled) annotated by her brother. It is 38 cm (15 inches) long and in excellent condition. By her own admission she regularly destroyed her own works, keeping only a few pieces which were of particular significance to her, making these early pieces exceedingly rare.
Shigemori Yoko (1953-2021) was born in Kagoshima. Yoko came to Kyoto where she initially studied painting at the Kyoto Tankidai Art College, then moved to ceramics at the Kyoto Municipal Art University where she studied traditional pottery techniques under Kondo Yutaka before entering advanced courses under Yagi Kazuo, graduating in 1979. Her first solo exhibitions were held while still a student, at Gallery Iteza in Kyoto. She eschewed the world of competitive exhibitions in favor of the intimacy of private galleries, and her list of solo exhibitions is expansive. She received the Yagi Kazuo prize in 1986 and 1988 at the Nihon Gendai Togeiten. She was one of five artists featured in Toh, volume 76, The first issue dedicated to Kyoto Potters. Toh was at the time the most in depth survey of important contemporary potters published in 1993. Her work is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
