Hamad Hamada Shoji Analysis

Hamada Shoji is a Japanese-born American ceramic that is currently working in New Hampshire. Hamada was born in Niigata, Japan in 1955 and for his college, he moved to the United States to study art history at Western Michigan University and after college he returned to his home in Japan to continue his studies as a ceramic with his master potter, Shurei Miura for five years. Experimenting and completing over 10,000 masterpieces by developing glazes for pots, he was well-known throughout Japan and United States. His glazed pots “possesses a stunning and unusual iridescent quality”. Hamada has an interest in rare ancient Chinese tea bowl glazes and glazes that have a three-dimensional quality that emphasizes peacefulness and purity. His ceramic can be expressed as calm, classic and very well balanced in aesthetic and his forms are influenced by the mystical and spiritual power of giving life to hidden beauty.
I aim for my art to provide not only beauty, but also peacefulness. My quest has been not for the perfect form or perfect glaze, but for the mysterious effect that first drew me to this work: the contemplative tranquility evoked through line and light”. His ceramic of throwing, glazing, and firing are very complex and his vessels are pristine, dynamically simple, and the objects are very devoted to contemplation and is influenced by the panoply of the nature world, star-filled nights, geologic phenomena, undulating ocean waves and fiery red sunsets. Hamada’s collection of his work as a ceramic are awarded and hung up on many famous art museums all around the world, such as the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, , the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in