Anatomy of Earth and the Liquid Memory of Clay — Sugar Object — Kodai Ujiie
Kodai Ujiie
Anatomy of Earth and the Liquid Memory of Clay · Sculptural ceramic, stoneware with layered glazes
Reference JPN-CLR-011
About the work
This sculptural object from Kodai Ujiie's Anatomy of Earth and the Liquid Memory of Clay is hand-built and sculpturally manipulated, its layered, fractured surface built through repeated glaze applications and kiln firing — a process of compression, cutting and accumulation left visible in the finished form.
Detail
This piece belongs to Kodai Ujiie's Anatomy of Earth and the Liquid Memory of Clay, and its identity is carried substantially by process. The stoneware body is hand-built and sculpturally manipulated rather than thrown or cast, worked into layered, fractured and relief surfaces through repeated cutting, compression and material accumulation before multiple glaze applications and kiln firing complete the object. That process leaves its trace directly in the finished form: cracked ceramic fields sit beside raised fragments and deep recesses, matte and irregular areas contrast with glossy, almost glass-like glaze accumulations, and light entering the relief structure produces shadow inside the cracks and reflection across the glazed ridges. The visual result — dense, compressed, almost mineral in its irregularity — is less a decorated ceramic surface than a record of the physical forces used to make it, consistent with Kodai Ujiie's wider treatment of clay as a material capable of recording pressure, heat and transformation rather than simply holding a fixed shape.
About the series
The collection's visual language consistently suggests compression, cutting, fragmentation and material accumulation — process made visible as the finished surface of the work.
