TALK AND DEMONSTRATION

Artists spotlight: Chie Fujii x Shoshi Watanabe

7:00 - 8:30 pm, Wednesday, July 15, 2026
MURASAKI HALL, The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles
(5700 Wilshire Blvd, Ste 100, Los Angeles, CA 90036)

RSVP HERE
Free, RSVP Required
This program will not be recorded

Chie Fujii and Shoshi Watanabe are participating artists in KINETIC STILLNESS: Sculptural Ceramics Exhibition, currently on view at Murasaki Hall, The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles, through September 19.

With multidisciplinary backgrounds, the two artists currently create functional works that incorporate art into everyday life, while presenting non-functional sculptural works in this exhibition. During this special collaborative talk and demonstration, they will share their techniques, artistic practices, and sources of inspiration, offering insight into how their diverse experiences shape their creative processes.

This event will provide a rare opportunity to engage directly with the artists, learn about their approaches to ceramics, and explore the relationship between functional objects and sculptural expression in their work.

ARTISTS

Chie FUJII

Chie FUJII, a Japanese artist/ceramics maker currently based in Los Angeles, majored in and mastered sculpture and fine art at the Tokyo University of the Arts. Fujii has an extensive background in clay art, using traditional/ancient hand-build techniques that explore the passage of time from antiquity to the present. Fujii currently works as a full-time artist, before 2020, she alongside worked as a studio specialist in the clay department of automotive design studios such as Tesla Design Studio and Honda R&D. Fujii also makes practical items under the name CHIECO Ceramics. When she made her first practical item while making art, she was impressed that it could be blended into daily life and used every day. This is what triggered her to start making practical items. Incorporating art into daily life. That was the main reason she started making practical items.

Photo by Jason Reuger

Shoshi WATANABE

Shoshi Watanabe is a Japanese ceramicist and teacher based in Los Angeles. As a high school student in Tokyo, Watanabe first began working with clay and considers his exposure to the culture of ceramics in Japan to have had a considerable influence on the style of his functional work. In 2014, he completed an MFA in ceramics from UCLA, where he now supervises students and maintains a studio. Having lived in Los Angeles for 15 years, and worked closely with mentor Adrian Saxe, his work has gradually come to blend Western and Japanese styles and techniques.
Watanabe draws considerable inspiration from Los Angeles: color palettes, a sense of ease and utility, a diversity of cultures. Some of his most-used glazes are based on 50-year-old glaze recipes from California, passed down by Saxe. California runs deeply through his practice, even as his sense of rhythm and balance, and hand-application of glazes, distinctly recall Japanese traditions. Watanabe sees ceramics as alchemy, in which elements derived from the earth — clay, minerals, and organic materials — are transformed to create artifacts that tie directly to their place of origin.

Related Exhibition

KINETIC STILLNESS: Sculptural Ceramics (on view through September 19)

Tea Ceremony with Pacific Plastics (on view through September 19)