Akiko Hirai is a distinguished Japanese artist living and working in the UK. She was born in Shizaoka, Japan in 1970 and came to London to study at the Central St Martins in the early 2000’s. Her forms are often derivative of early Eastern vessels such as moon jars and tea wares. She layers and carves her works, ‘looking for contrasts in the rawness of the dark textured clay and the purity of the lighter glazes’. She often uses a reduction processing in her firing, allowing the surface to evolve through the raw materials – a process she compares to the ageing of any material over the passing of time.
Her work is held in private collections and on display in public collections such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Everson Museum in Syracuse, NY
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