Lena Takamori

I make ceramic figurative and landscape forms. I am exploring the question of “what is inside?”

My figurative work focuses on women. The pieces often portray a kind of deeply embedded interiority. I aim to respect a sense of privacy and maintain the mystery of their emotions.

My earlier figurative works tended to be in stages of sleeping / waking. I then explored dress and posture. I made a body of work focusing on people in a state of movement – women carrying things – whether a heavy backpack, grocery bags, suitcases, pregnancy. And most recently, I have been exploring the skeleton and incorporating real shadows as a form of mark making. These works explore the feeling of a presence within an absence – life force in its most elemental form.

I am always seeking new ways to make marks with different kinds of tools. A sense of movement, layers, and freshness are important to me.

When I make my landscape work, I am imagining what it may feel like to be inside that space. I explore ideas of shelter, privacy and shadow. My house forms reflect on abandonment and felt presence within a state of absence. Like posture in figurative work, it’s interesting to explore how houses have their own posture and gesture too.

Showing the works together also provides exciting potential for dialogue between the “characters” and the “scenes” – and a chance for me to be surprised by the dialogues that can form through arrangement.