Rago Auctions

The vessels of Sakiyama Takayuki’s Chōtō: Listening to the Waves series are inspired by the ceramicist's constant muses: the ocean and the perpetual motion of its waves. “When I was in junior high school, I knew I had to find a way to be an artist and live by the sea,” Takayuki once reflected. Takayuki studied at Osaka Art College, where he worked with avant-garde ceramicists Hayashi Yasuo and Yamada Hikaru. After traveling around Japan in search of the perfect spot, Takayuki established his studio on the west coast of the Izu Peninsula. He glazes his works with his own special formula made with sand from the local beaches, creating powerful forms that seem to have emerged from the sea themselves. Works by Takayuki are held in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Arts and Design, among others.