untitled (88/01), Seto Hiroshi

Exhibition Label: "Contemporary Ceramics East and West," Feb-2002, Susan Earle, Mary M. Dusenbury Seto Hiroshi was one of many promising young potters inspired by the Living National Treasure Tomimoto Kenkichi at Kyoto Geijutsu Daigaku (Kyoto University of Arts). Tomimoto taught his students a wide range of skills and encouraged them to find their own voice. After he graduated in 1964, Seto moved to the potters’ village of Mashiko, north of Tokyo, to be near another Living National Treasure, Hamada Sh*jiro, one of the principal founders of the Folk Art Movement. At first Seto used a salt kiln to produce ash and green glazed works and white-slip faceted jars in the folk tradition, but his work changed dramatically after a two year stay in the United States (1972-74) - where he taught at Indiana University and South Colorado State College - and travels to Korea (1967), Mexico (1973), and, in 1978, to the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia. In the early 1980s Seto produced a series of ceramic walls, commissions from schools and the Utsunomiya Shinkansen train station. Since that time he has focused on simple sculptural forms, such as this one, with an interest in stripes running as a leitmotif throughout his work. Here, the dull gold and silver lines glimmer as they undulate over the rich purple surface of a hemisphere that seems massive in its simplicity.