To the untrained eye, it looks like a metal with a worked surface, or a metal that has faded with time. Shun Yamauchi creates ceramics with such a metallic texture using a unique technique. The origin of his unique creations lies in a single vessel he encountered when he was a student at a vocational school.

I entered the Kyoto School of Traditional Crafts with a light heart, thinking it would be nice to study ceramics in Kyoto, but I was troubled by the gap between the reality of the school and my own, and thought about quitting. Then I saw a national treasure, the Aburitake Tenmoku Tea Bowl, in class, and I was shocked to learn that such a cool thing could be made in ceramics. The beautiful colors of the silver oil drop pattern on the black background and the presence of the bowl struck a chord with Mr. Yamauchi, who has been a fan of rock and punk music since those days and prefers black and silver in his daily life, including fashion.

After I had the vessel I wanted, I made a fresh start and began to take pottery seriously, and I decided to become a potter.

After graduating from a vocational school, he apprenticed himself to ceramic artist Yuichi Inokai, and after three years of live-in training in Nantan City, he became independent. He opened KOHAKUGAMA in Higashiyama Gojo.

One of Mr. Yamauchi's representative works from that time is a silver-engraved vessel made of black-glazed ceramic ware. Many people pick up these pieces, which are a fusion of clay and metal, without realizing that they are ceramics at first.

Mr. Yamauchi's vessels are first glazed and fired, and then silver or gold is baked on all surfaces. Then, using a tool such as a rheuter, the surface is scraped off by hand. The glaze, silver, and gold that remain on the surface create a pattern.

The theme of his recent works is "small scenes," meaning scenes that remain in a corner of my mind. The subjects of my work in recent years have been scenes I have seen while walking or traveling. For example, pine needles on the ground, ripples on the surface of water, shadows created by light, and sunlight filtering through trees. I express such ordinary scenes in my daily life as patterns.
What is engraved on the seemingly cool-looking vessels are natural landscapes. The charm of these works is that the texture of the clay adds a sense of warmth.

Mr. Yamauchi has collaborated with artists of other genres, such as painters, and formed a group called "Utsuwa Danshi" with fellow potters to communicate the appeal of pottery to a wide range of generations. She has also changed her approach to pottery making through her life in the Corona Disaster.

As I spent more time eating at home, I wanted to make something that would make the dining table more enjoyable," he says, and a new series of brightly colored vessels with gold and indigo glazes was born. Mr. Yamauchi laughs, saying that the vessels finished in pink with a thin layer of gold were the first he had ever been told were "cute" by customers.

In the future, I would like to go back to my roots, or rather, I would like to make the tenmoku teacups that inspired me to become a potter. It has been exactly 20 years since I started making ceramics, and I would like to take on a new challenge with my own approach. One cannot help but wonder what kind of works Mr. Yamauchi will create in the next stage of his career.

The name "KOHAKU-GAMA" comes from the location of his first studio at 589. His signature is silver-engraving pottery, using an original technique of hand-polishing the surface of black-glazed pottery with silver paint. In recent years, he has been working on the theme of "small scenes" that linger in the corners of our memories. He has held solo and group exhibitions in Japan and abroad, mainly in Kyoto. He has also collaborated with artists of various genres.

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