Hiroshi Toyofuku

Overview
Hiroshi Toyofuku
Hiroshi Toyofuku works in a pottery style known as Bizen ware, named after the Bizen province in which it is traditionally made and where he resides in Japan. Toyofuku's work is at once angular and curving. Each vessel explores the relationship between geometry and fluidity, concepts which are married seamlessly in each form. They recall origami as planes and folds construct a three dimensional form. Toyofuku's work possesses a powerful solidity while also conveying lightness, a balanced tension that is fully expressed within a singular work. 

The hiyose clay used in Bizen pottery is notable for its inability to be glazed - each piece is able to convey something unique about the soil it came from, unobscured by glaze colors or sheen. In this way, the material exists in its most honest state and its reactions to the firing are pure expressions of its essential nature. The vessels are wood-fired, a firing process which often results in surprising "patterns" of stripes, dots, and alternating color fields. They are stunning testaments to the wisdom of letting a material's inherent beauty reveal itself.
Works