Yuji Ueda (b. 1975 in Shiga Prefecture, Japan) is a ceramic artist who has developed a unique style by drawing out the potential of materials to their limit while maintaining the lineage of traditional pottery.
His works, whose surfaces appear to be cracked or peeled off, or whose forms themselves seem to be crumbling or melting away, are stripped of their utilitarian qualities as vessels and strongly radiate a sense of existence as “objets d'art”.
The artist's works are created by moving back and forth between quantitative methods, such as chemical experiments on differences in the expansion and contraction of raw materials and firing methods, and the more accidental methods of natural forces, such as the flames of wood-fired kilns, to draw out from the materials what cannot be controlled by empirical rules alone.
Yuji Ueda was born on a prestigious tea plantation that cultivates the renowned “Asamiya Tea.” After studying under potter Yasuhisa Kohyama, he continues to make pottery in his own wood-fired kiln in Shigaraki, one of the six oldest kilns in Japan. He is now represented by BLUM.