For her second exhibition at Anton Kern Gallery, Los Angles based ceramic artist Shio Kusaka will present 127 porcelain and stoneware pots. Kusaka models ceramic vessels of which no two are the same. Their shapes are simple and usually bottom-heavy or columnar. A choice of palette is enlivened with surface textures, patterned markings and colored lines. Though they look utilitarian, this is not why they are made. It is clear that formal considerations are paramount for Kusaka and that there is an exploration through the ceramic medium of these formal concerns. As Roberta Smith stated in her 2011 review in the New York Times “If the Minimalist painter Agnes Martin had been a potter, she might have made vessels like these.”

Concurrent with our exhibition, Shio will present new works in a two person exhibition with Jonas Wood at Glen Horowitz Booksellers in East Hampton, NY.

Shio Kusaka has had solo exhibitions at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2012); greengrassi, London (2011); Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Ferndale, MI (2009); Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago, IL (2009); and Tortoise, Venice, CA (2005). Notable group exhibitions include Paul Clay, Salon 94, New York, NY (2011); Dwelling, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY (2011); Banquet of the Jackal, The Harriet and Charles Luckman Fine Arts Complex, California State University, Los Angeles, CA (2011); Not Extractions, but Abstractions (Part 2), Clifton Benevento, New York, NY (2010); Multiple Pleasures: Functional Objects in Contemporary Art, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, NY (2010); Not Extractions, but Abstractions, Karma International, Zurich, Switzerland (2010); Objects, Furniture & Patterns, Art Since the Summer of ’69, New York, NY (2009), Faith, Champion Fine Art, Culver City, CA (2004); and164 ˝ Group Show, Los Angeles, CA (2004).