Shinichi sawada biography of william

SHINICHI SAWADA
(1987 | JAPAN)

Shinichi Sawada was born in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. Diagnosed as autistic, he found employment in the hospital bakery of the Ritto Nakayoshi Sagyojo (institute for the mentally disabled, in the city of Kusatsu).

In 2001, the professor directing the workshop where Sawada worked with clay, launched the construction of a small potter’s cabin: it was located a few kilometers from the institution and deep in the wilds.

Shinichi sawada biography of william

Here Sawada creates his sculptures silently and with unflagging regularity.
His works – demons, monsters, masks – are characterized by hundreds spikes of clay that give them an intricate and frightful beauty. He plants these one by one into the either round or cylindrical shapes constituting the central body of each piece.

After shaping the bodies, he fires them in a large wood-fired kiln built of earth and ignited only twice a year. This gives them their brownish-red hue in lighter or darker shades, depending on the flames.
This monstrous