Kazuya Ishida
Kazuya Ishida’s work specializes in a combination of slip wear, a traditional British technique that uses colored mud to create patterns, and an original spiraling technique he developed that makes use of the centrifugal force of a potter's wheel. Keeping in line with traditional Japanese Bizen ware practices, he uses limited materials such as natural clay and natural ash glazes to explore the rhythms and patterns of nature.
Inspired by the beauty of natural forms such as shells, glaciers and stalactites, he creates forms while drawing out the characteristics of the materials with the changes that occur in the wood kiln and the natural glaze. The contemporary forms of his work reflect the primordial, rippled patterns of the ocean bed, tectonic shifts of a cliff face, and the textural marks that ebbing tides have left on rock pools, pebbles and seashells.
Kazuya studied under Mr. Atsushi Isesaki, a Living National Treasure of Bizen ware, before moving to England to study traditional ceramic techniques, language, and culture at a local pottery workshop. He has since established his own pottery practice in Japan, where he uses a wood-fired noborigama multiple chamber climbing kiln, and an anagama single chamber climbing kiln.
