Yu Nishioka

Born in Chiba Prefecture, Nishioka devoted much of his twenties to playing in a band before eventually finding his way to ceramics through experiences that included working for an IT company and as a music box craftsman. After graduating from a ceramics training school, he apprenticed under Goro Suzuki, whose work had profoundly impressed him. Under Suzuki, renowned for his exceptional wheel-throwing skills, Nishioka continued to refine his technique by spending two hours at the wheel every evening after finishing his daily work.The keen sensitivity to ceramic materials that he inherited from his master became the foundation of his practice and ultimately found expression in his distinctive Ki-Seto "Abura-age" surfaces, for which he is now widely recognized. Drawing inspiration from Momoyama-period Mino ceramics while developing ideas directly from the raw materials he gathers, Nishioka's approach is exemplified by his "Mino Sometsuke" series, which imagines an alternative history of Mino pottery—one that might have existed four hundred years ago. He is also an avid cat lover.