A geometric enigma by Kako Katsumi enclosed in the original signed wooden box titled Haisekito and dating from this year. It is 18 x 15 x 36 cm (7-1/4 x 6 x 14-1/4 inches) and is in perfect condition, directly from the artist. This recent vase distills his practice to a striking clarity, a primal vessel where surface, form, and pattern are inseparable. It rises as a tapering column, its silhouette somewhere between a votive object and an abstracted figure, perhaps reminiscent of the court caps of nobles from the Heian period. The gently domed top is punctured by a small, irregular aperture, a quiet disruption within an otherwise continuous volume. A point of entry into the object’s inner space. The surface is divided into interlocking fields of iron-rich red and pale, sandy clay, articulated by incised black lines that trace their boundaries with precision. In this, Kako’s long engagement with archaic patterning evolves into something more distilled. These divisions move across the form with a slow, deliberate rhythm, suggesting an underlying order that resists immediate decoding. What distinguishes this mature work is its restraint. Where earlier pieces explored repetition and surface density, this vase reduces its vocabulary to a few essential elements—mass, division, texture, and void. The result is a form that feels both ancient and immediate, as though it belongs equally to an archaeological past and a contemporary sculptural language.
Kako Katsumi was born in Kyoto in 1965, and graduated the ceramics department of Saga Art College in 1986. He was selected for the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition, the Asahi Ceramic Art Exhibition and the Kyoten held at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art in 1988, followed in 1989 by the National Ceramic Art Exhibition and Mino International Ceramics Exhibition. He has since exhibited and or been selected/ awarded many times at these prestigious events. He established his kiln in Nishiwaki City in 1991. In 1994 he worked in Melbourne. Australia, and would create a second kiln in 2001. In 2004 he would be awarded the Prize of Excellence at the Tanabe Museum of Art Modern Tea Forms exhibition. In 2005 he established his current kiln in Sasayama, Hyogo prefecture. In 2009 he his work was featured at the Kikuchi Biennale Exhibition and the following year was awarded at the 4th Contemporary Tea Bowls Exhibition, and in 2011 was selected for the influential Paramita Ceramic Exhibition. 2013 saw him in New York, and 2014 at the Museum of Ceramic Art in Hyogo (Kobe). Held in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art among others.
