The "Glass and Ceramics: A Five-Person Exhibition - Playing in Silence" is being held at the Seiko House Hall on the 6th floor of Seiko House. "Silly" means stillness. Adorable vessels that make you want to pick them up, vessels that exude a dignified tension, mysterious colors that spread in the miniature world... The works of the five artists certainly seem to stand in silence, but along with that silence, they contain a graceful beauty underpinned by solid technique.

A dreamlike, yet somehow nostalgic landscape unfolds beyond the glass cube. —Jun Matsumura—

I lower my gaze and peer from the side. Something comes into view. It might be a distant mountain range, the moon floating in the night sky, the sky before dawn, or sometimes just a faint layering of colors. A dreamlike yet somehow familiar landscape, evoking a sense of nostalgia and longing.

"A Single Landscape." All of Jun Matsumura's works share this common title, and each is further given an individual name that evokes the landscape it depicts, such as "Before Dawn" or "The Lingering Moon in the Morning Mist."

Thin sheets of glass are colored, and several of them are glued together.

Matsumura's works utilize a technique generally known as "laminated glass," which involves gluing together and layering multiple sheets of glass, the same type used for windows. Each sheet of glass is between 2mm and 10mm thick. By coloring each sheet with colored pencils and then layering several of them together with adhesive, nostalgic and mysterious scenes emerge. While the technique of layering glass has existed for some time, coloring each sheet with colored pencils is a method invented by Matsumura.

"Initially, it was a lot of trial and error figuring out what colors to use and how to layer them to create a certain landscape. Now I'm starting to get the hang of it, but the fine-tuning is difficult because the degree of unevenness created on the surface of each glass piece with a diamond wheel before coloring, and the subtle changes in color tone and transparency before and after bonding, are all challenging."

"I love the ever-changing colors of the sky, and I want to capture that in my artwork."

The works primarily depict scenes of dawn and morning, and the color palette is predominantly blue, including indigo, blue, and light blue.

"I often get up early in the morning to work on my art. I love watching the pitch-black night sky gradually lighten, changing from deep blue to indigo, then to blue, and then the orange and crimson hues of the sunrise begin to mix in. I want to capture that ever-changing color in my work. Also, I have vivid memories of beautiful landscapes I've seen in the past. I want to revive those beautiful landscapes through my art."

Each piece is small, the smallest being a cube approximately 3.5 cm square. Within this tiny space, landscapes with a mysterious sense of depth and perspective unfold. Moreover, within that mysterious depth, numerous stories float gently. Perhaps they are nostalgic landscapes seen in dreams.

"Thinking about what kind of landscape to paint is both enjoyable and challenging. Adjusting the thickness of the lines I draw with colored pencils is also difficult. My work tends to have a lot of blue tones, but in the future I would like to use brighter colors such as pink and yellow as well."

The overlapping "petals" that will forever reside in our hearts

"Hitohira" is a word that refers to something small, thin, and flat, such as a flower petal or a leaf. It also carries the nuance of something faintly disappearing. Matsumura's works, made by layering thin glass, are indeed made up of many "hitohira." However, the landscapes they evoke will forever reside in our hearts.

The "inner power" emanating from her works — Kiyoko Morioka —

"It's a force from within."

These are the words of Kiyoko Morioka when asked about the most important aspect of her pottery making. What is inner strength...?

"Perhaps it's the power, the tension, that emanates from the form of the artwork itself. Regardless of the size of the piece, it's a form imbued with a taut sense of tension."

Morioka's works are created by skillfully manipulating a rotating potter's wheel. Born in Kanazawa, Morioka studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Denmark at a young age. There he encountered pottery, and after returning to Japan, he worked as a potter at a local kiln, thoroughly learning the techniques of the potter's wheel.

According to Mr. Morioka, speed is crucial when finishing pottery on a potter's wheel.

"You have to mill the clay while it's still 'lively.' If you don't shape it while the clay still has its resilience, it will lose its strength over time, and you won't be able to bring out its inner power. Clay that's shaped while it's still resilient retains its strength even after firing."

To achieve the envisioned form, to polish it relentlessly and in one go.

The highly skilled technique of swiftly and decisively shaping the clay towards the envisioned form is what creates the "inner power" in Morioka's works. For a piece titled "Transparent Cloud," which is about 30 cm tall, the time spent at the potter's wheel is 15 minutes.

The opening at the top is surprisingly small compared to the shape of the vessel. However, this opening creates a pleasant sense of liberation, as if the pent-up tension is being released. This exquisite combination of tension and its release is one of the hallmarks of Morioka's work.

The tension of the potter's wheel and the gentleness of the porcelain's texture and colors.

The pieces are fired at high temperatures without glaze, and the porcelain surface is finished by filing it down. Because no glaze is used, touching them leaves a soft, gentle feeling on the fingertips. And the matte white color resonates with an undeniable gentleness. In addition to one-of-a-kind pieces like vases, Morioka also creates everyday items such as tea sets, teapots, and teacups, and these pieces are very popular. The tension of the potter's wheel and the gentleness of the porcelain surface and color tones—these two parallel elements may be the reason for their popularity.

A faint, ink-colored cloud drifts about.

While matte white is the dominant theme in Morioka's work, he also creates pieces where light ink-colored clouds subtly creep into the world of white.

"Technically speaking, it's a method called 'carbonization firing.' The piece is placed in a cylindrical heat-resistant container called a saya along with rice husks and fired. The intensity of the light ink and where it falls on the piece changes depending on the firing temperature and the amount of rice husks. I've gotten a pretty good grasp of it, but the interesting part is that I don't know exactly what the final result will look like until I take it out of the saya."

Pride as a potter

The landscape, which resembles a light ink wash, also appears as shadows that change depending on how the light hits it, and this landscape becomes a thin veil that gently envelops the "inner power" that the vessel possesses.

"Right now, I value tension and focus when I'm throwing on the potter's wheel, but as I get a little older, I might want to try throwing more loosely. I think throwing loosely will be difficult in its own way."

In Morioka's words, one could sense the pride he holds as a potter, a pride born from the immeasurable amount of time he has spent turning the potter's wheel and working with clay.

Delicate wildflowers painted on glass — by Mikiko Nakano —

The delicate flowers in bloom and the leaves so translucent you can see the veins—the autumn grasses are reminiscent of a Rinpa school painting.

Mikiko Nakano's glass vessels are adorned with depictions of plants that adorn the mountains and fields of Japan. The lines are incredibly delicate, yet the fresh and vibrant colors immediately catch the eye.

"I started with oil painting, and then, while studying copperplate engraving at a specialized school in Italy, I began helping with stained glass. That's how I first encountered glass. Italian stained glass isn't just about combining glass pieces; it also features a lot of painting, such as religious images and depictions of fruits, so I learned glass painting there. At the same time, I became interested in glass itself, and I enrolled in a glass school to learn glassblowing, where I discovered the joy of creating everyday tableware for people to use in their lives."

The glass is blown after the painting is applied.

From painting to copperplate engraving, then stained glass and glass painting, and finally blown glass—this journey that Nakano has taken as an artist is condensed into her works. But this journey is not the only thing behind her work. In fact, Nakano's grandmother and mother were masters of the tea ceremony, and Nakano herself has been familiar with the world of the tea ceremony since childhood. The "Japaneseness" that flows at the core of her work is greatly influenced by these experiences.

The paint used for the decoration is a type of refractory enamel that can withstand temperatures of nearly 1000 degrees Celsius. Apparently, the technique of glass painting is not entirely new to Japan, but there were few pioneers, and Nakano says, "It was a continuous process of trial and error."

Through a continuous process of trial and error, Nakano developed his own unique technique. You can see it if you look closely at the plants he has painted. The lines of the thin stems and delicate leaves are subtly wavering, and they also seem to be slightly bulging. This wavering and bulging is created by blowing the glass after the painting is done.

The flowers and plants begin to sway and swell when you blow on them.

"I enjoy both painting and blowing glass, but painting definitely takes more time. Sometimes, a piece I've spent a considerable amount of time painting will break due to a mistake during the blowing process. When that happens, it's very sad. I first shape it to about the size of an egg, then paint it, and blow it again, which causes the glass itself to expand and result in a different appearance than what I had envisioned. That's what's interesting about it."

These pieces, titled "Glass Glasses," have a two-layer structure: clear glass on the inside and milky white glass on the outside. The milky white glass is decorated with engraved lines, so even the same plant looks different on the inside and outside. That's one of their charms.

A light, delicate distortion reminiscent of Oribe tea bowls.

Imagine preparing thin matcha tea in this bowl. That's the kind of scene you'll want to imagine with the glass bowl "Mountain Hydrangea." The green of the thin matcha tea is reflected in the transparent glass, and the mountain hydrangea adorns the tea. It's sure to create a beautiful scene. This bowl is not perfectly round; the rim, known as "kuchizukuri," is subtly distorted. This distortion is reminiscent of the distortion found in Oribe ware tea bowls.

While studying in the West, where there is a tendency to favor uniform and orderly beauty, Nakano's plants and flowers sometimes waver and sometimes distort. Undoubtedly, the aesthetic sense that Japan has cherished flows through them.

In addition to the three artists we interviewed, the following two individuals are also exhibiting their work in this exhibition.

Yuko Watanabe, Mayumi Hamano

◆Art exploration diary ~ Exhibition information

Glass and Ceramics: A Five-Person Exhibition - Playing in Silence

Date: January 2026, 7 (Thursday) - January 2, 2026 (Sunday)

Time: 11:00 – 19:00 until 17:00 on the last day