ATLA’s debut presentation for Independent brings together the work of Japanese ceramic artists Yoshikazu Tanaka and Kuniko Kinoto, whose practices reimagine clay through transformation, memory, and duration. 

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Tanaka works through cycles of destruction and renewal, breaking down failed works and fragments before recomposing and refiring them into sculptural forms that carry the residue of prior lives. His works emerge compressed and altered, holding history within their surfaces.

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Kinoto’s ceramic objects move more quietly. Resembling strange stones or unearthed artifacts, her forms blur the boundary between the natural world and sculpture, ceramic and geology. Through layered surfaces and expansive use of color, she creates objects that feel both excavated and distinctly present.

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Together, Tanaka and Kinoto offer two distinct approaches to material transformation—one expansive and recomposed, the other condensed and assertive. Both resist spectacle and immediacy, instead proposing a slower encounter with clay as a material capable of holding memory, fracture, and time itself.

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