#kitamura junko

[coltonwbrown]

Kitamura Junko

[brooklynmuseum]

If you ask someone to name five artists, they will likely name prominent male artists, but how many people can list five women artists? Throughout March’s Women’s History Month, we will be joining institutions around the world to answer this very question posed by the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NWMA). Together we hope to draw attention to the gender imbalance in the art world, inspire conversation and awareness, and hopefully add a few more women’s names to everyone’s lists.

Women were traditionally forbidden from apprenticing at the ancient kiln sites of Japan, so female ceramicists were practically unknown in Japan until university art programs began to offer Ceramics as a course of study in the second half of the 20th century. Once women began to practice pottery, they proved to be some of Japan’s great innovators, perhaps in part because they owed nothing to ancient tradition. Kitamura Junko actually looks to ancient Chinese and Korean methods of ceramic decoration, but creating swirling patterns and dramatic voids that are distinctly modern. With remarkable precision, she uses a sharp bamboo stick to chip shapes out of the glazed black surface and fills the indentations with white slip.

Can you name #5WomenArtists?

[b22-design]

Kitamura Junko

[iamjapanese]

KITAMURA Junko（北村 純子 Japanese, b.1956）

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[iamjapanese]

KITAMURA Junko（北村 純子 Japanese, b.1956）

Tall Open Vessel　1998

Stoneware

Photo: Museum Of Fine Arts, Houston / HC

[iamjapanese]

KITAMURA Junko（北村 純子 Japanese, b.1956）

Bamboo carved stoneware bowl　1992

Earthenware