I love spiky weird things and Ikuko Iwamoto’s ceramics fit the bill both in her functional pieces as well as her sculptures like the ones below that look like growths.
Ikuko works in porcelain, a favorite material of mine for its lightness.
How cool are her wall installations? They look like they’re growing and alive, like on a petri dish! These, however, are not fully representative of her breadth of work – much of what she does is, dare I say, even cooler.
How amazing is that bowl? Ikuko went to Tezukayama College in Japan initially, graduating in 1993 and then followed that up with a BA from Camberwell College of Art and a recent MA in 2006 from the Royal College of Art in London.
These are her genome containers but they look like little anemones to me!
These spiky vessels and vases must take so long to create. They are so tactile and awesome. They look almost furry, like you’d expect them to be soft but they won’t be.
This to me looks like chicken flesh and reminds me of essentially the inverse of Tony Marsh’s ceramic works.
Cute! These would be beautiful on a mantel or in a bathroom, I can’t imagine using them in hand!
For some reason these look like Bart Simpson to me mixed with The Alien as it looks like something could puncture the surface of them at any time.
This teapot is from her Nucleolus Series and I like the different textures she’s created between the flatter spout and the prickly body and lid.
Look at this phenomenal lighting she creates as well! I think she must have a team of people working with her in order to create what seems like a large volume of work!
I just can’t get over how cool these look and how she can manually create that regularity of spacing. The patience this must require!
The final spiky vase – had to get one more in!
Tags: 3D, ceramic, patience, porcelain, repetitive, sculpture