Influenced by her upbringing in Japan and her current home in New York, Shino Takeda's ceramics embody her sensory experience of sight, touch, taste, sound, and smell. Takeda’s work is renowned in the design world, and Diary marks her debut gallery exhibition. For this site-specific installation, Takeda has made a new series of vessels, a table, and a fabric installation presented in The Cottage at JDJ | The Ice House.

The colorful glazes that Takeda applies to her hand-built ceramics are inspired by her life, a sort of diary of her moods and thoughts expressed through color, texture and pattern. AMEONNA, 2019, a bulbous vessel painted with moody blue glazes, was created during a week of intense rainstorms, its title a reference to the eponymous Chinese rain goddess. After the BLUE, 2019, a large vessel with bright colors and celebratory figures, was the first piece she made after working for quite some time with a limited color palette. A grouping of Japanese tea bowls reference the changing seasons of the surrounding landscape and the greater Hudson Valley.

Takeda collaborated with the Tokyo-based furniture designer Fumihisa Iwataki to create a unique wooden table inlaid with shards of her ceramics. Into the Wood, 2019 is made from maple and sapele, an almost iridescent deep brown African hardwood often used for musical instruments. Takeda’s ceramic pieces are inset, jewel-like, into the top and sides of the table.

This exhibition marks the debut of Takeda’s first fabric-based work — a tapestry made with pieces of vintage fabrics, sewn and partially dyed by hand. The geometric configurations are inspired by her patchwork approach to glazing her ceramic sculptures. Mingle, 2019 captures a play of form, shape and color that feels visually connected to the Russian avant-garde Suprematists of the early 20th century, as well as Boro, a traditional Japanese fabric patchwork technique.

Raised on Kyushu Island in southern Japan, Shino Takeda (b. 1975) lives and works in New York.