MASAOMI YASUNAGA

Yasunaga was trained by Satoru Hoshino, a third-generation proponent of the Sodeisha movement, which sought to innovate new techniques and sculptural forms, eschewing the functionality and aesthetics of traditional folk art. Yasunaga creates ceramics using a traditional Tebineri hand-building; in lieu of clay, he uses glazes, as well as unconventional mixtures of glaze and minerals, rocks, metals, and glass powders. To preserve the forms during firing, Yasunaga buries them in sand or unrefined porcelain inside large kilns. Once fired, the resulting forms are removed from layers of material, a process the artist likens to archaeological excavation.

Masaomi Yasunaga (b. 1982, Osaka) lives and works in Iga-shi, Mie Prefecture, Japan. He has a master’s degree in environmental design from Osaka Sangyo University. Recent exhibitions include 即兴游离：陶瓷新倾向 (Impromptu Drift: New Tendencies in Ceramics), at UCCA Clay, Yixing, Jiangsu Province, China (2025); “In Holding Close” at Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts, Auburn (2023); and “Masaomi Yasunaga: A Shadow of the Eternity,” at Utsuwakan, Kyoto, Japan (2019). His work is featured in the permanent collections of the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn, Alabama; Musée Ariana, Geneva, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

“Masaomi Yasunaga: 記憶の足跡 | Traces of Memory” is organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, and curated by Alex Gartenfeld, Irma and Norman Braman Artistic Director, and Amanda Morgan, Associate Curator.