Incollect Magazine - Issue 14

Incollect Magazine 71 Ryo Toyonaga Moderne Gallery At Moderne Gallery, founder Bob Aibel, a leading authority on the works of the Studio Craft Movement, has also curated an extensive collection of historical and contemporary ceramics from the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Following a tip from a friendly dealer, he visited Ryo Toyonaga in his New York studio. He was “blown away by the work,” he says. The originality and quality of the work are among the things he considers when selecting artists to show in his gallery. “Toyonaga’s ceramics have both of those qualities in spades,” he says. Toyonaga’s preferred material for his ceramics is hand-sculpted clay, with his forms “developed totally organically and spontaneously from his unconscious, without any drawings or plans before the making, so his process is highly improvisational,” Aibel says. The work looks good in any interior, but tends to work best, Aibel feels, in “a rather simple or minimalist interior so that the furniture and other pieces in the space don’t overwhelm his work.” Aibel describes Toronaga’s ceramics rather poetically as “a refined mixture of organic imagination and modern aesthetics, emerging from the depths of the earth and the edges of his soul.” Photos: Christian Giannelli Ryo Toyonaga, Surrealist Life Form #3, United States, 2002, aluminum. Ryo Toyonaga, Surrealist Figure #5, United States, 1993, stoneware. Ryo Toyonaga, Surrealist Life Form, United States, 2001, stoneware.