Yu Tanaka channels textile fluidity into porcelain with Zephyr
The Japanese artist's first encounter with porcelain at the Limoges manufacture yields two sculptural vessels whose folded surfaces blur the boundary between fabric and ceramic.
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A chance discovery at the Fondation Bernardaud led to an unexpected dialogue between artist and material. Yu Tanaka, encountering porcelain for the first time, accepted an invitation to the Limoges manufacture to explore its possibilities, and from that encounter emerged two vessels, both titled Zephyr, whose surfaces move with the gentle fluidity of gathered cloth.
The illusion is almost complete. Where one expects the stiffness of fired ceramic, the eye finds instead the soft collapse of fabric, the give of material meeting gravity. The folds tumble downward in a cascade that suggests movement frozen mid breath, as though the vase itself were exhaling. This sleight of hand belongs equally to Tanaka’s vision and to the hands of Bernardaud’s artisans, those practitioners of an exceptionally refined craft who transformed the artist’s concept into porcelain reality.
The Zephyr vases exist in two interpretations: one in a muted cream tone that echoes raw linen, the other rendered in a vivid chromatic yellow that announces itself with quiet authority. Both share the same architectural vocabulary of folds and curves, the same tension between rigidity and flow that makes porcelain such a paradoxical medium. A vase that mimics cloth, a solid material that suggests weightlessness.
Bernardaud’s engagement with contemporary artists has long enriched its legacy as one of Europe’s finest porcelain houses. These new works extend that tradition, affirming the manufacture’s commitment to exploring how an ancient material might speak to contemporary sensibilities. The Zephyr vases are available through Joan B. Mirviss Ltd.
Imagery courtesy of Bernardaud (@bernardaud).
