Shio Kusaka

This elegant monograph marks Shio Kusaka’s first solo exhibition with Gagosian and her first exhibition in Italy.

Shio Kusaka’s ceramic work often incorporates playful details and subject matter, from basketballs and fruit to dinosaurs, raindrops, and wood grain. However, in this new body of work, she further explores her geometric abstractions, offering a more direct view of her technical mastery as she adheres to a single-process approach to study the possibility of endless permutations.

In previous abstract works, Kusaka often ended a line or grid pattern once it became distorted by the curvature of the pot, producing fragmented, interlocking patterns that appear as overlapping drawings, contradicting the three-dimensional volume. In these new works, however, she takes an almost topographic approach by carving, painting, and even drawing with pencil intricate lines along the surfaces of each pot, allowing the shape of each vessel to dictate the curves of the lines.