A-7 | Spencer Museum of Art

A-7, 1998

Portfolio/Series title: Series "EnSo" or "Circle Phase"

Where object was made: Japan

Material/technique: No-yaki stoneware; metal

Dimensions:
Object Height/Diameter (Height x Diameter): 8.5 x 42 cm
Object Height/Diameter (Height x Diameter): 3 3/8 x 16 9/16 in

Credit line: Gift from the artist and Dai Ichi Arts Gallery

Accession number: 2001.0202

Not on display

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Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"Contemporary Ceramics East and West," Feb-2002, Susan Earle, Mary M. Dusenbury
In this series of ceramic circles, Kano Enry. refers both to the Buddhist enso, variously interpreted as representing the universe or void, and to the turning of the wheel that represents the Hindu notion of samsara, the continual cycle of life and death. The artist has often expressed his deep concern for the future of the earth and chooses to use primitive processes and materials very close to their natural state. Like many of his other works, A-7 was not fired in a kiln, but in a bonfire. The artist has sometimes held public “surface bonfire firings”, as he calls them, involving local populations and using local materials, in India and Nepal (1989), Indonesia (1990), and Sri Lanka (1992) as well as in many parts of Japan.