Born in 1975, Matsutani Fumio creates soaring ceramic sculptural vessels in his studio in Ehime Prefecture on Shikoku Island. His mostly hand-built process begins with shaping clay by hand, allowing it to dry, and then refining the form through detailed incisions. He etches single lines across the entire piece, glazes and fires it multiple times, and finally finishes it with sandpaper. Born into a family known for Tobe ware (砥部焼, Tobe-yaki), Matsutani grew up in his family studio surrounded by hand-thrown, mass-produced porcelain utensils decorated in dark cobalt blue. Departing from his family tradition, he sought to broaden his creative horizons and explore contemporary expressions of ceramics.
At the age of twenty, Matsutani enrolled at Kyoto Saga University of Arts, where he studied under Imai Masayuki (1930–2023), who specialized in colorful inlaid ceramic works. It was here that Matsutani’s interest in color began. Colors play a critical role in his ceramic language, and many of his recent pieces are titled with a single Japanese Kanji character: Sō 蒼 (Blue), Ō 黄 (Yellow), or Rei 黎 (Black). About this, he has stated:
“I use colors as titles, without adding any descriptive words, because all that really matters is the feeling of the works and I want them to speak for themselves. To put it another way, ‘The technique is complex, but the expression is simple.'”
His disciplined technical foundation is built on both workshop experience and art-college training. As a result, Matsutani has developed a practice that also embraces challenging forms inspired by forms outside of the ceramic medium:
“Mankind has always created buildings that seem to defy gravity. Although ceramics and architecture aren’t the same, I feel the same way about my sculptures … In the future, I’d like to create works formed by arranging and stacking multiple components, defying gravity but at the same time working with it.”
Excerpts from an article by Joe Earle, published in an exhibition catalog on the occasion of Matsutani’s exhibition at Dai Ichi Arts, Ltd. (June 2024).
Fumio Matsutani’s profile was created with the participation of Dai Ichi Arts, New York.
Featured work
Selected works, 2022
