縁 — Japanese Craft, Evolved

Akira Hoshino  星野 玲

Akira Hoshino works in 七宝焼 (Shippo-Yaki) cloisonné enamel. Her sculptural creatures with fine delicate design occupy the threshold between craft object and living thing, their scales, eyelids, and claws rendered with a precision that stops viewers mid-step. In 2025, Hoshino received the Prime Minister's Award at the 58th Japan Cloisonné Artists Association Exhibition, the discipline's most prestigious recognition. Her work has been shown at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, impertinente (Limoges, France), and Mitsukoshi Isetan.

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Shiori Kawano  河野 詩織

Shiori Kawano works in urushi — traditional Japanese lacquer — producing large abstract panels in which microscopic fragments of eggshell, mother-of-pearl (raden), and metal powder accumulate across a deep lacquer ground through weeks of layering and polishing. The surfaces she arrives at are luminous and deeply spatial, the result of a process she describes as one in which unstable forms find structural strength through accumulated layers. Kawano's work was selected for the 2nd FEI PURO ART AWARD (2023) and has been exhibited at FEI Art Museum (Yokohama) and impertinente (Limoges, France).

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Shunsuke Nomura  野村 俊介

Shunsuke Nomura creates ceramic sculptures of exoskeletal creatures — beetles, crabs, insects — rendered in stoneware with a precision of form and glaze that regularly stops gallery visitors mid-step. His works sell out immediately upon exhibition at galleries in Tokyo, and the artwork we present was created just for this exhibit. Drawing on metalworking knowledge from his early training, he also pioneers ceramic-metal hybrid techniques with no precedent in traditional Japanese craft. He has shown at Art Fair Tokyo (2024, 2025), KOGEI Art Fair Kanazawa (2023, 2024), Osaka International Art (2025), and Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi (2025), and is the recipient of the Ceramic Synergy Prize (2023) and the Takifuji Art Prize Special Award (2023).​

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Naoki Sakamoto  坂本 直樹

Naoki Sakamoto works in hammered aluminium, using the traditional Japanese metalworking technique of 絞り (shibori-hammering) to beat a single sheet of aluminium into sculptural form. His works — including shoes and wearable objects that sit between craft and conceptual art — are further distinguished by his use of anodized aluminium dyeing, a technique he has adapted to introduce vivid, permanent colour into the metal surface. Sakamoto's practice bridges the ancient discipline of 鍛金 (forged metalwork) and a distinctly contemporary visual language.

 

​​Kenyu Mitsuhashi  三橋 鎌幽

Kenyu Mitsuhashi is the successor of Kamakura-bori (鎌倉彫), a tradition of lacquered woodcarving with an 800-year history originating in the Kamakura period. A descendant of Busshi — professional sculptors of Buddhist statuary — Mitsuhashi deepened his practice through years of Zen training at Kenchoji Temple, the oldest Zen training monastery in Japan, where he was given the title "KENYU" by Zen master Yoshida in 2010. He has produced ceremonial tea utensils for Kenchoji Temple, held solo exhibitions at Yokohama Takashimaya and JR Nagoya Takashimaya, exhibited in Paris and Milan, and was selected for the LEXUS NEW TAKUMI PROJECT 2018–2019. At 縁 — Japanese Craft, Evolved, Mitsuhashi presents works that bring his lineage into dialogue with a new generation of Japanese makers.