Kodai Ujiie, Ofukei and Lacquer Tea Bowl - 漆貫入彩御深井茶盌, (C25969)
Tea bowls are meant to be held and felt. They are meant to be touched by the fingers, the palm, and the lips. They are meant to be perfectly balanced, not just in their weight lying in the hand but in the contours of the rim that touch the mouth. They are to hold the heat without burning the palm beneath. And, their color is to be in harmony with the spectacular green of the tea they hold. For all those reasons and many more, tea bowls are one of the most difficult ceramics to get “right.” But that has not prevented artists from embracing the challenge to turn tea bowls into canvases for boundless creativity.
Kodai Ujiie’s bowl seems like an artifact from outer space, excavated from the inside of a meteor. The tilted rim is as evocative as the roughly sculpted base. The bowl feels like it was conjured from the elements, instead of made by a person’s hands. I am drawn to amorphous shapes like these, whose physical appearance feels primordial and void of human agency. The bowl seems as unmediated as the feeling of an unexpected touch on your arm by someone’s hand. In just the same way as that sudden sensation, the bowl calls me to pause and pulls me toward it—like being awakened from a dream, only to enter another dream. So startling is the bowl that I find myself searching for familiar shapes. I imagine seeing an image of chrysanthemum blossoms in the center. But it is only my mind that is projecting these forms into a wholly abstract work. The bowl reminds me that we intuitively look for the familiar in the unknown. But the bowl instantly becomes familiar when drinking tea from it. The soothing taste of the tea is grounding and makes any bowl—no matter what shape, texture, and weight—feel intimate and welcoming. In the truest sense of the word, Kodai Ujiie’s bowl is a canvas for the artist who made it and the person drinking tea from it. It is a canvas for the imagination and for a wholly unique experience.
Frank Feltens, Ph.D
Curator of Japanese Art
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery,
Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art