Recurring Themes – Keiko Mukiade and Simon Ward

Recurring Themes is a ceramics and glass exhibition which presents the intriguing and unexpected creative art works by Simon Ward and Keiko Mukaide.

From Keiko: The title Recurring Themes reflects my search for meanings that return yet transform with each encounter. I have long been drawn to glass, a material that reveals its character through light.

Since moving to the countryside, I often look up at the sky, noticing how it changes daily, from morning to evening. One day, I discovered my work illuminated by sideways morning light, appearing entirely new. This exhibition seeks to capture such moments. I hope visitors will experience the works in natural light, engaging all their senses.

At the centre of the back gallery, a suspended glass chandelier reimagines my installation Memory of Place in York, where glass columns stood before medieval stained glass to symbolise the ascent of the soul.
In this exhibition, I also explore the use of gold and silver leaf. In Japan, such materials have long reflected light into the dim interiors of temples. By connecting these traditions with my own practice, I aim to create a space where my roots, surroundings, and daily life come together in art.

Keiko Mukaide is a visual artist from Tokyo, now based in Fife. She is a graduate of the MA Ceramics & Glass course at the Royal College of Art, and holds a BA in Communication Design from Musashino Art University in Japan. She primarily works in glass to make large-scale sculptures.

From Simon: Found objects such as kitsch ceramic windmills, Chinese vases, hot water bottles, fishing lures and toys are somehow combined with clay, plaster, wood, metal and concrete. For this exhibition I am exploring a developing and evolving personal creative language with clay materials and processes being the main vehicle. A recurrence of previous decades of work have an influence but the evolving work perhaps starts to show an emerging influence of Pop Art, Surrealism and Sculpture. Both wall based and floor based pieces include works which focus purely on swiftly composing found ceramic materials together. While other work is quite meticulous and time consuming. Arrangements of ceramic cast porcelain multiples such as birds and fish are grouped in shoals and framed in Perspex boxes. There is still a strong nod to an interest in both Chinese and Japanese ceramics, specifically blue and white underglaze decoration. In this show there is a playfulness and a balance between finished and refined work and work which is teasing out new thoughts and ideas for the future of my practice.

The main focus for my practice concentrates on traditional Ceramic processes across broad spectrum of contexts including one off gallery pieces, ltd batch production and work produced for permanent installation in the public realm. Objects and collections/archives of objects have played a prominent role in influencing ideas. Work in the past revealed layers of cross-cultural influences working with an eclectic palette of materials, which are used to collaborate with and elevate crafted ceramic vessels. I have an underlying fascination of the traditional craft methods and printed surfaces both on-glaze and underglaze techniques. Recent work is quite whimsical with layers of nonsense and narrative. Most recent work has involved the exploration of ceramic surfaces using under glaze print techniques and traditional Chinese blue and white decoration. Follow Simon on Instagram here.