Masahiro Asaka

Masahiro Asaka (Japanese, born 1979), Surge 1.2, 2011, cast glass and pâté de verre. Gift of David Kaplan and Glenn Ostergaard, 2019.195.

Born in Japan, Masahiro Asaka studied at the Tokyo International Institute of Glass Art before earning an MA degree at The Australian National University School of Art in Canberra. Australia.

Asaka is interested in creating sculptures that balance his desire to control the material and his realization that the forces of nature cannot be controlled. He employs a technique where the outcome is often unpredictable. As with traditional Japanese ceramic practices, once a piece is fired inside a kiln, the forces that act on it are outside the artist's control. However, the artist has indirect control over the material by manipulating temperature, length of time in the kiln, and other factors. Using the raw qualities of glass, Asaka expresses vulnerability, strength, illumination, and power as metaphors for man's relationship with the natural world. He combines the notions of energy and gravity that are the fundamental elements for glass to be formed.

Asaka's technique combines casting and pâté de verre with crushed glass to achieve a gradual transition from solid to icy shards that form a crystal-like granular texture. His intention is to capture and visualize a frozen moment of glass interacting with those forces which affect the sculpture’s formation, such as heat, energy, and gravity.