A Question Of Clay: Strange Clay – Hayward Gallery – Revd Jonathan Evens
Revd Jonathan Evens, Artlyst
November 2022

Others, like Takuro Kuwata, experiment with the building blocks of ceramics – clay and glazes – pulling these mediums in unexpected directions. Glazed with elaborate colours, Kuwata’s ceramics radically reinterpret the shape of the Japanese tea bowl or chawan. His glazes and techniques, which include the embedding of small stones in the clay to erupt during firing and puncturing the surface, all serve to create unique and surprising organic forms that evoke cooling lava and sun-baked mud.
His controlled accidents embrace imperfection, as do many other artists here. Liu Jianhua incorporates cracks, fingerprints and other imperfections in his seemingly uniform white porcelain reproductions of toys, household goods and clothing from family and friends. […]