Akio Takamori's ceramic sculptures evoke an eerie sense of reality and presence. Often drawn from childhood memories of small-village life in Japan, his standing and sleeping figures depict ordinary people going about their day-to-day existence. Another body of Akio's work consists of ceramic vessels, often painted with erotic images.
Takamori was born in 1950 in Nobeoka, Miyazaki, Japan. He studied art at Masashino Art College, Tokyo, before moving to the U.S. in 1974. He received a BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1976 and an MFA at Alfred University in New York in 1978. Since 1993 he has been a faculty member in the University of Washington School of Art.
Examples of Akio's work can be found in the Carnegie Institute Art Museum (Pittsburgh), the Victoria & Albert Museum (London), the Kansas City Art Institute, the Los Angeles County Museum, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, and the Tacoma Art Museum, among others. In 2006, the Arizona State University Art Museum created a touring "mid-career survey" of Akio's work, Between Clouds of Memory. The exhibit will be shown at the Tacoma Art Museum from June 10 through October 8, 2006. As well, the UW's Henry Art Gallery will present Akio Takamori: The Laughing Monks July 8, through Octrober 29, 2006.
Akio Takamori's Boy in Yellow Sweater stands calmly in the CSE reception area on the first floor of the Allen Center.
Garth Clark Gallery, New York UW School of ArtFrank Lloyd Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
Flintridge Foundation page on Akio Takamori
Review of Between Clouds and Memory
"Boy in Yellow Sweater" with his friends at Garth Clark Gallery, NY.
Between Clouds of Memory: Akio Takamori, a Mid-career Survey, by Akio Takamori, Peter Held, and Garth Clark.
