Joan Takayama-Ogawa: Ceramic Beacon

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SOURCES
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zaiden
Artist Statement,
Joan Takayama-Ogawa, 2022,
Pasadena Art Alliance
ceramic beacon
Interviews in person,
via phone and via Zoom with
Joan Takayama-Ogawa
from 2019–2022
By captivating the viewer with elaborate detail, her work
initiates a conversation. Her toylike reinventions of the figurine
and game board are intimate and irresistible sculptural satires.
Takayama-Ogawa encourages the viewer to look and learn, to
evaluate, and hopefully, to act and speak out to make change happen.
She draws the viewer into her intricate sculptures because
they are a pleasure to behold. They lure the child in us all to play,
and then to look deeper, serving as reminders that we all play a
part in the issues that she depicts. These pieces also raise the
question of whose turn it is to make the moves and who comes
out the winner in all of these situations.
By confronting the harsh realities of our world constructively,
Takayama-Ogawa gives shape to the shortcomings and downfalls
of society through her artworks. She moves quickly and when an
issue strikes to her core, she acts by hitting the clay. Her hands are
an outlet for her outrage. She foresees our socio-political, economic,
and environmental mistakes and depicts them in clay. Her
eloquent and imaginative works provide commiseration, and they
educate. She sculpts to shed light on some of the most critical
threats we face.
Keiko Fukazawa and
Joan Takayama-Ogawa:
A Confluence of American
and Japanese Cultures,
Elaine Levin, Ceramics Monthly,
December 1994,
p. 49-53
Recollecting the Past:
Joan Takayama-Ogawa’s
Wit and Whimsy,
Judy Seckler, Ceramics Monthly,
February 2005, p. 37-41
(FOLLOWING SPREAD)
(LEFT)
Japanese American
Teabag (detail)
2003
Glazed earthenware
(RIGHT, FIG. 15)
Sex and the City
Teabag (detail)
2001
Glazed earthenware