MEGUMI YUASA

Lives and works in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

The sculptor and ceramicist Megumi Yuasa began working with the visual arts in 1964, whenhe made his first pieces. The following year, he went into exile with his partner, Naoko Yuasa, on aranch in the interior of the state of Goiás, researching the technique and producing with the landhe had at his disposal. There, he produced his first utilitarian pieces, which, with the help of partners,were presented in 1968 at a solo exhibition in Goiânia. In 1971, back in São Paulo, he attended theEscola Brasil for six months at the invitation of painter Luiz Paulo Baravelli (1942-). Since thebeginning of his career, Megumi has always been present at exhibitions of Japanese-Brazilian artistsand at exhibitions focusing on the language of ceramics. Always imbued with a philosophical andpolitical discourse, he is an artist with an anarchic bias in his practices, in that he incorporates othermaterials into his ceramics, such as metals and paints, which departs from the traditional scope ofJapanese ceramics.

In 1979, he began working as a ceramics teacher. At that time, the couple bought a lot in VilaCampestre, in the south of São Paulo, where together they built a wood and diesel kiln. In thefollowing years, the place began to host groups of students and artists for political, philosophical and artistic meetings. In 1982, he was invited to teach a ceramics course at the Universidade deCaxias do Sul, in Rio Grande do Sul. In 1984, he was invited by the Museu de Artes do Rio Grande doSul - MARGS - to teach the course Observação da Realidade (Observation of Reality). In 1987, he hada solo exhibition at the Galeria de Arte São Paulo.

In 1988, he won the sculpture category award from the Associação Paulista dos Críticos deArte - APCA. That same year, the couple were invited to form an artistic nucleus within the CerâmicaAruan factory in Itu, where they worked for the next twenty years. Living there, they had a space inthe factory where they modeled their pieces and taught the craft to the young workers whoproduced utilitarian items. The invitation to come to Itu came after Megumi took part in theexecution of the panels by Cícero Dias (1907-2003) and Fernando Lemos (1926-2019) at theBrigadeiro subway station in São Paulo.

In 1989, he traveled to Portugal to teach a course at the Seminário de Cerâmica Brasileira inLisbon. In 1991, he returned to the Galeria de Arte São Paulo with a new solo exhibition. At the endof the 1990s, he had his last solo shows at Skultura Galeria de Arte in São Paulo (1997) and at GaleriaLGC Arte Hoje in Rio de Janeiro (1998). Among the group exhibitions, highlights include hisparticipation in the 13th and 14th editions of the Bienal de São Paulo (1975 and 1977, respectively); inthe 1987 traveling group show Encuentro de Ceramistas Contemporaneos de America Latina[Encounter of Contemporary Ceramists of Latin America], at institutions such as the Museum ofContemporary Hispanic Art in New York; the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City; theMuseu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro - MAM-RJ; among others. He also took part in the groupshow Laços do Olhar, in 2008, at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake, in São Paulo, and, in 2023, he was partof the group show O Curso do Sol [The Sun’s Path], at Gomide&Co. He has taken part in variousfestivals and meetings of ceramists, as well as exhibitions held on the anniversaries of Japaneseimmigration to Brazil. In 2024, his work was part of the group show Tocar a Terra, curated by RachelHoshino, which was part of the Diasporas Asiáticas program at the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in 2024.Throughout his career, and to this day, Megumi Yuasa continues to give workshops, lectures andcourses on the themes covered by his practices. In 2024, Gomide&Co held his first solo show since1998, with a project conceived by Alexandre da Cunha, entre terras and Rachel Hoshino.

Text courtesy Gomide&Co.