Motoko Wakana

1962, Tokyo – Motoko draws inspiration from Japanese culture and the of the natural world. She trained at Saitama University and the Takasaki College of Art, and honed her craft over six years at the Utatsuama and Oshigahara workshops before moving to England in 1999.

Her artistic journey has been shaped by collaborations with potters including John Bedding, Clive Bowen, and Mary Wondrausch, and her work has been widely exhibited.

Motoko’s ceramics capture the changing seasons and everyday moments of sensory experience, the changing colour of the sky, the fragrance of flowers, the emerging buds of plants, the taste of fruit. Her pieces are defined by a distinctive play of light and dark clays, layered with her signature slip in relief patterns. She forms her work through throwing or slab-building, decorates with white slip, applies ash glazes, and completes the process with charcoal reduction firing, resulting in vessels that are both tactile and nature inspired.