M 12-1
Hawaii-born David Kuraoka is a professor of art at San Francisco State University, but returns to his island home, where he has been named a State Living Treasure, for several months each year. Though the artist produces work in both locales, there is an elemental, primordial quality about much of his work that suggests a particularly strong affinity to an environment born of volcanic processes. Kuraoka is best known for his pit-fired forms in which the clay body becomes a three-dimensional canvas for an extraordinary and subtle palette of hues. However, his work includes a broad range of work that offers further testament to his versatility, and his awareness that with different approaches to his work, he can say different things with clay.
For instance, a group of large wheel-formed porcelain vessels with celadon glaze pays homage to Asian tradition. Their simplicity and elegance, the subtle variations of symmetric contour, the soft crackle in the ocean-cool transparent layers of color belies inherent technical challenges. In contrast, the pit-fired forms speak of ways in which the artist has created significant variations on classic process, working with a freer hand. Though begun on the wheel, they are further shaped by hand.
Kuraoka also works with large, pit-fired tiles grouped in wall-mounted sections. The artist has been able to guide but not dominate the serendipitous effects of chance, creating distinctive gestural marks with the calligraphy of smoke and fire. Other tiles are used to create multi-sectioned works, glazed in interlocking stripes that provide a dynamic contrast to the rich but muted hues of the pit fired works.
Kuraoka also works in bronze, using clay works from which to create molds for casting. Patination of the metal surface becomes the equivalent of the colors which bloom on the clay during pit firing. The bronze forms are darker in coloration, but their resemblance to their kin in clay is uncanny – an inspired and boldly playful move by an artist wonderfully in tune with his materials.
Education
- Ph.D. Equivalent, San Francisco State University
- B.A., M.A., Art San Jose State University
