Artist

Akiko Hirai

Japanese

Akiko Hirai, born in Shizuoka and based in London, makes ceramics that carry the marks of process as their subject. Her Moon Jars — vast, uneven vessels built in two hemispheres — accumulate ash, wood, and slip in ways that read as weather more than decoration. She trained at Central Saint Martins after an earlier career in linguistics.

Hirai builds forms that seem inevitable rather than designed. The Moon Jar, adapted from a 17th-century Korean tradition, becomes a container for time: raw clay slip, wood ash, and layered firings settle into a surface that keeps changing under light.