Young Female Artist Gold Glazed Ceramic Sculpture ー向井 奈生子 “土の皮Ⅳ”

This ceramic sculpture by Mukai Naoko unfolds as an organic, hollowed form with an elongated body that undulates like a fallen branch or a fragment of coral cast ashore. The surface is rendered in a matte, earthen clay—warm, reddish-brown and densely textured with fine, incised striations that radiate across the skin like growth rings or cellular tissue. The tactile quality is pronounced: the exterior appears dry, almost fibrous, emphasizing a sense of slow formation. Irregular apertures puncture the body at varying scales, their edges rough and subtly flared. Within the cavity, the interior is lined in luminous gold, creating a striking contrast between the raw exterior and the reflective inner surfaces. The gold catches light with liquid warmth, pooling in the recesses and suggesting hidden vitality beneath an otherwise muted shell. Placed among stone and foliage, the work feels less like an object placed in nature than something discovered within it. It is 45 x 20 x 25 cm (18 x 8 x 10 inches) and is in perfect condition, directly from the artist in late 2025. The piece balances rawness and refinement, concealment and disclosure—a dialog between the earthly and the luminous that characterizes Mukai’s emerging sculptural language.  It comes with a signed wooden placard.

Due to size the cost of shipping will be accrued separately.

Mukai Naoko was born in Tokyo in 1999, and graduated from Musashino Art University in 2023 with a degree in Crafts and Industrial Design, specializing in ceramics, and completed the Tajimi City Pottery Design and Technical Center in 2025. Representing a new generation of ceramic artists, her work has already been presented internationally and domestically, including Talking Flowers at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague (2022), ishoken: A New Wind at Nihombashi Takashimaya (Tokyo, 2024), and Alluring Forms at Gallery Voice (Tajimi, 2025). In 2025, she was selected for the 6th Kanazawa World Crafts Triennale at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, marking her emergence onto a broader contemporary craft stage.