Kazunori Hamana

Combining deliberate mark-making with the unpredictable effects of the elements, Kazunori Hamana explores the relationship between human gesture and natural forces, creating objects that appear eroded and shaped by their environment. Working from Isumi, a fishing village on the Pacific coast of Chiba Prefecture, the self-taught ceramicist constructs irregular vessels inspired by traditional Japanese tsubo, functional clay jars with origins in prehistoric Japan. Meticulously built by hand using coils of clay sourced from Shiga Prefecture, Hamana’s vessels are shaped through improvisation and human intuition, their surfaces painted, scratched and scored with gestural lines and symbols. Further influenced by ancient Jōmon and Yayoi pottery traditions as well as the paintings of Cy Twombly, Hamana leaves his vessels outdoors after firing, exposing them to sunlight, rain and salt air. This process of natural weathering gradually transforms their surfaces, producing distinctive patinas that make each work unique.

Kazunori Hamana was born in Osaka, Japan, in 1969. He studied Environmental Studies at MiraCosta College, California, before returning to Japan. Select solo exhibitions include presentations at Curator’s Cube, Tokyo (2018 and 2020); Blue Projects at Blue Mountain School, London (2019); Pierre Marie Giraud, Brussels (2020 and 2022); Kazunori Hamana in collaboration with Yukiko Kuroda, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2021); and Archipelago, Germantown, New York (2022). Selected group exhibitions include Kazunori Hamana, Yuji Ueda, Otani Workshop, curated by Takashi Murakami, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2015), travelling to Blum & Poe, New York (2016); Juxtapoz x Superflat, Pivot Art + Culture, Seattle, travelling to Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver (2018); Benefit Art Auction Preview Exhibition, Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito (2021); Minoru Nomata, Kazunori Hamana, White Cube, Paris (2021); William McKeown, curated by Jonathan Anderson, Château La Coste, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade (2022); and Thirty Years: Written with a Splash of Blood, BLUM, Los Angeles and Tokyo (2024). His work is also held in the collection of BY ART MATTERS, Hangzhou. Hamana currently lives and works in Chiba, Japan.