A spectacular gnarly tea bowl by Kako Katsumi enclosed in the original signed wooden box titled Hai Kohiki Hake Chawan. The vessel rises in a subtly faceted, almost architectural cylinder, yet its lip wavers irregularly, as if softened by heat and time. This quiet instability is central to its presence. The surface is a dense terrain of layered firing effects: a feldspathic white glaze pools and recedes across the body, breaking to reveal charred blacks, deep umber, and flashes of reddish-brown in vertical passages, recalling both natural ash deposits and the scorched residue of wood-firing. In places, the glaze crawls and fractures into a fine network of crackle, punctuated by small pinholes—evidence of trapped gases released in the kiln, now fixed as constellations across the skin. These imperfections are not incidental, but integral, articulating what might be called the memory of fire. The interior, smoky, translucent, and gently reflective, suggests use, and the intimate act of tea. It is 12 cm (5 inches) diameter, 9 cm (3-1/2 inches) tall and in excellent condition, directly from the artist.
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.
