SHIGEMASA HIGASHIDA

SHIGEMASA HIGASHIDA: Harmony of Clay and Glaze April 5 – May 3, 2025

Lucy Lacoste Gallery is thrilled to present Shigemasa Higashida: Harmony of Clay and Glaze the third solo exhibition with the revered Japanese ceramic artist April 5 - May 3, 2025, at the Gallery in Concord, MA. This exhibition, many years in the planning, features the artist’s signature creative use of lush and nuanced glazes in dialogue with the many expressions unique to the potential of clay such as roughness, smoothness, tearing and faceting.

Shigemasa Higashida (1955), takes his inspiration from the slightly imperfect in nature. At first glance we are awed by the lush visuals of glaze only to become aware of the geometric planes and plateaus to which the color is aligned. Again and again, he re-invents nature.

A master of glaze as well as form, Higashida is distinguished by his rich green Oribe glazes, which flow and cascade into white waterfalls and deep emerald lagoons and pools of water. He is also known for his creative use of Shino, an esoteric glaze that goes from a reddish brown to white with bubbles and can trap carbon to create unusual effects on functional and experimental forms. The artist is also fond of using Black (Kuro Oribe) with White for a dramatic expressionistic effect.

In Oribe Round Plate the torn edges connect us to features of land and stone with the inviting green of Oribe running down the land formations to pool in the basin at the bottom.
His rectangular Oribe Plate does this as well and looks like a landscape seen from above.

His teabowls become canvases for special effects.
In Oribe Teabowl with Orange, the Oribe green is used poetically in contrast to the dry orange slip to make us think geologically and imaginatively.

Kuro Oribe Teabowl is a tour de force of an abstract composition in black and white utilizing glaze relating to form.

Oribe Tea Caddy is a symphony of shading from the green of Oribe glaze fading to amber with accents of aqua all on a very nuanced small form that generates a slightly out of this world nature experience.
Ash Glazed Tea Caddy conveys the artist’s intimate experience with glaze and form-- like a sensuous body lightly touched by the hand. Or like a geologic outcropping only seen on the moon or in Japan.

In a time when ceramic artists often eschew the properties of clay and glaze in favor of concept, Shigemasa Higashida embraces their capabilities and relishes the dance between the two. In the process, as seen in Harmony of Clay and Glaze Higashida he leads us to places of which we are unaware yet recognize in our imaginations.