A deeply tactile tea bowl selected from the artists personal collection dating from 2024 by Kako Katsumi enclosed in the original signed wooden box titled Hai-Kohiki Marumon Chawan. The vessel resists perfect symmetry; its gently irregular rim and shifting planes invite the hand to trace its circumference registering each inflection in a physical rhythm. The surface is animated by a richly fractured hai-kohiki (ash-infused slip) skin, its dense network of crackle recalling parched earth or weathered stone. Across this pale ground, bold circular brushwork—marumon—emerges in iron-rich black. These rings do not sit upon the surface so much as seep into it, their edges dissolving into the crawling glaze and granular textures produced in the kiln. In places, glossy accumulations pool and blister, forming crystalline protrusions that catch the light like mineral growths, while elsewhere the surface retreats into matte dryness. The interior offers a quieter, more fluid counterpoint: a softly pooled, translucent glaze gathers in the base, suggesting depth and stillness in contrast to the exterior’s turbulence. It is 12 cm (5 inches) diameter, 9 cm (3-1/2 inches) tall and in perfect condition.
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 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.
