Tucked inside a cobbled mews in Dalston, The Chocolate Factory N16 hums quietly with the creative energy of over two dozen artists. Among them is ceramicist Akiko Hirai, whose presence, much like her work, reveals itself gradually. Her studio, with its worn surfaces and quiet concentration, feels less like a stage and more like a sketchbook: an evolving record of thought made tangible. It’s a place where materials are given time to speak.
We visited on a cloudy afternoon, the light soft and diffused, spilling across pale, porous forms in various states of drying and becoming. Hirai spoke about the tension that shapes her work: the interplay between surface and suggestion, solidity and collapse. This idea also ran through yAwArAkAi kArA – The Reflecting Skin, our most recent exhibition.
She recalled a conversation with fellow exhibiting artist Kenta Anzai. A Japanese curator once remarked that his works appeared to have a soft skin. Akiko, in contrast, is drawn to firmer, more structured surfaces. Yet within that rigidity, something unexpectedly gentle begins to emerge. Her pieces seem to open toward softness, as if concealing something quietly unresolved beneath their structure.
Hirai works with a rhythmic and instinctive energy, often throwing on the wheel using a unique blend of Raku clay. Once shaped, each vessel is refined by hand, pressing and guiding the surface toward a delicate balance between roughness and grace.
She layers slips and glazes in pale, contrasting tones, creating subtle depth and variation. A final dusting of ash on porcelain lends an elemental finish, grounding the work in earth and fire. During firing, chemical reactions between glaze and ash bring about unpredictable textures. Rather than aiming for perfection, Hirai allows these interactions to push her forms to the edge of collapse. The results are rich with cracks and surface variation, where imperfections become evidence of transformation rather than flaw.
Hirai works without a fixed destination. Instead of mapping out outcomes, she allows the process to lead by testing, altering, responding. It’s an approach shaped by risk and sensitivity, in contrast to Kenta’s slower, methodical practice. Their methods diverge, but both speak clearly through form, refined over time through repetition, inquiry, and attention.
To step into Hirai’s studio is to enter a space in constant motion. Surfaces carry the marks of recent touch, and the air hums with decisions being made in real time. There’s a sense of continuous making; forms being shaped, reconsidered, and shaped again. It is not a place of stillness, but of thoughtful momentum, where creation feels both deliberate and instinctive.
We’re pleased to share that new work by Akiko are now available online and in the gallery.
