MISHIMA Kimiyo

Japanese, born 1932

BiographyDeparting from the centuries-old Japanese tradition of tea wares in Japan in order to create new and exciting ceramic art forms, Mishima Kimiyo, took on an important role in the contemporary art scene. She has devoted herself to make non-formative “information” the subject/material of sculptural art works, thereby creating “plastic news.”

Mishima started her career as a painter and collage artist. In early 1950’s, she was influenced by abstract arts and was known for her collage works using magazines and newspapers. From 1971, Mishima started to create sculptural works as “metaphors for disposable information” and comments on the wastefulness of society. Mishima made “ceramic newspapers” by using discarded clay (dug up from tile factories and scrap heaps). This clay was flattened as thin sheets and silk-screened with actual newsprint. Mishima crumpled the clay sheets to look like a discarded sheets of newsprint, before firing.

The artist has explained, “We live in an age of overload, buried under an avalanche of information. From this perspective, I made ceramics into printed matter. As earlier humankind once recorded information on clay tablets, I solidify and substantiate information from temporary, disposable paper sources through the permanence of ceramics.” She has also said, “daily newspapers we have finished reading pile up before our eyes. In that pile of newspapers I see accumulation of time from passing days. Whether or not we read and process the information in the end its all garbage. Such disposable information is characteristic of our modern age. I want to take what we take for granted in everyday life, transform it into ceramics and trust it before your eyes one more time. I want to see how terrifying it can be in the medium of clay.”