ASAI Hitomi

Hitomi Asai Ceramic artist. Born in 1957 in Ehime prefecture, currently living in Ishikawa prefecture. She began her career in 1983, and her piece, “Music of the Lotus Pond”, won the highly respected Foreign Minister’s Commendation at the 15th New Japanese Crafts Exhibition. This piece was crafted of Kutani porcelain overlaid with classical Japanese artwork and fired in a kiln at temperatures between 950 and 1,100 degrees Celsius. It features countless layers of light pastel colors that showcase the artist’s unique vision and technique. She has been selected five times to appear in the Japanese Fine Arts Exhibition and once in the Sino-Japanese International Biennial. She has won the Hokkoku Award twice at the Ishikawa Modern Art Exhibition and both the award of excellence and honorable mention at the Ishikawa Traditional Kutani Porcelain Exhibition. She has been featured in the First Jingdezhen Worldwide Ceramics Exhibition in China and the Seoul Exhibition at the Wings of Ishikawa. She has had travelling exhibits in France, Greece, and Spain, and her work has been purchased twice by the Foreign Ministry. She is a member of the Ishikawa Ceramics Association and from 1994 to 2005 was a guest lecturer of ceramics at Kinjo University.