On Celadon

Opening Date: 2005-Jan-11
Closing Date: 2005-Mar-25
An invitation to teach at the China Art Academy in Hang Zhou, the birthplace of arguably the finest 'Celadon' ever produced in the Far East, was the introduction into researching how this glaze, revered by connoisseurs and academics, might be reinvented in a contemporary context. The common view is to consider glaze as a decorative and functional coating over a clay body.
Yasuda considered this notion inadequate to describe the true 'beauty' of Celadon. Hang Zhou has ceased to produce Celadon for 600 years but samples and shards exist in museums and formed the basis for systematic testing of clay and glaze to establish his hypothesis that glaze can form the more significant part of volumetric form. Another analogy might be that 'glaze' forms the 'flesh' over the substrate of the clay body.

The works in the exhibition explore celadon from this single point of view: the previously untested idea that 'form' can be created by glaze. The investigation necessitated Yasuda to work outside his normal reduction fired iron baring blue/green glaze solutions to develop white opaque and orange/yellow glazes.

Having worked with wheel thrown ceramics for 20 years the new work sought a change of expression in form and he developed the technique of the torn edge to a thrown object, thus producing a natural dynamic to the porcelain form, allowing the qualities of the edge to show through the surface of the thick glaze. The works examined that delicate relationship between 'glaze' and 'body' in a new light.

Resulting from this exhibition was an invitation to give a paper on the History of Celadon at a conference in Munich, Germany and also Kecskmet, at the ICSKH, Hungry. Both events hosted an exhibition of work by Yasuda.