SACHIKO FUJINO 藤野さち子 CV
Sachiko Fujino spent years as a fashion designer and fabric dyer before discovering her interest in ceramics. Upon encountering works by the seminal ceramic group Sōdeisha and an exhibition by women ceramicists around 1981, Fujino saw the possibility of a freedom of expression she could never achieve with textiles. She enrolled at Tezukayama University Junior College under the tutelage of pioneering woman artist Tsuboi Asuka (b. 1932), in whom she saw an artist, with intention, expressing herself freely, creating work with a timeless quality and great vitality.
Her background in working with fabrics is reflected in her use of techniques such as folding, crimping, and tucking in her work, and in the subtle textured application of colour by airbrushing matte slip and the occasional coloured glaze onto the surfaces of largely greyscale works, creating subtle tones and shades that reflect the light and shadow cast by the juxtaposed forms.
Clay is a malleable medium whose plasticity suggests new ceramic forms for Fujino, whose works are created through a dialogue with soft clay. While she might begin with a strong sense of how the finished work might end up, the artist allows for forms to emerge freely in the process of creating, working until there is something to be seen from every angle. Each work begins as a geometric base, but in the process of forming the work, the artist is given a strong inner compulsion to add curves, which can be found everywhere in nature.
Through her works, the artist explores the possibility of channeling an unconscious inner universe, full of unexpressed inner emotions and thoughts that find expression in clay. Works become words, with their titles revealing a preoccupation with the idea of extension and collapsing distance, be it extending the self through communication and interconnections, in creativity, or in time and space.
Fujino made a splash early in her career, winning the Grand Prize at the Women’s Ceramic Art Exhibition (1987) held at the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, and has gone on to receive multiple accolades both nationally and internationally. Her work has been exhibited extensively in Japan and the US, and was part of the popular traveling exhibition Soaring Voices: Contemporary Japanese Women Ceramic Artists (2007–2012 in Japan, France, USA). Her work is collected by institutions including the Kyoto Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Faenza International Ceramics Museum (Italy), Peabody Essex Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, and Boston Museum of Fine Arts (USA).
“Through my works, I wish to express the voices that for some reason cannot be verbalised. These, I think, can only be realized by confronting the latent memories that reside in the profound depths of the mind. The act of kneading clay and creating forms connects me to the thoughts and memories deep in my heart. The works, then, become my communication channels to the outside world.
We see in nature an infinite number of relations that exist in a delicate balance. There is a similarity between this balance with nature and the equilibrium necessary to create sculptural works. When I start my coil-building process, the form is ever expanding and reveals itself to me through my manipulation of the clay.
I create my pieces through a dialogue with the soft clay. Clay is a moist, flexible medium, whose plasticity suggests new ceramic forms. Conscious of both the suppleness and the fragility of the clay, I attempt to create forms that possess an inner power of conviction. I would like to approach the clay in such a way that my pieces might be the expressions of profound thoughts and feelings.”
