Artist Bio

Keiko Fukazawa was born in Japan and educated at the Musashino Art University in Tokyo. Fukazawa also studied at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles where she taught ceramics for four years. She currently lives and has her studio in Pasadena, California, and has recently retired as an associate professor and head of the ceramic department at Pasadena City College.

Fukazawa's mother introduced her to art and encouraged her to pursue painting as a career. However, the young artist was discouraged by the cultural conservatism that made it particularly difficult for women painters. She turned to her mother, who was an excellent and creative cook. As the two women discussed the relationship between food and the vessels it is stored, prepared, and served in, Fukazawa's interest slowly moved to ceramics. While working as an apprentice at the ceramic studio in Shigaraki, she was again dismayed by the rigidly gendered practices. Intrigued by the California Clay Movement led by artists like Peter Voulkos, Fukazawa decided to come to California 1984. Since then Fukazawa has created work in multiple national and cultural contexts, embracing a cultural hybridity that says “anything goes.” Her recent residencies in Jingdezhen, China, known as the “porcelain capital” of the world, have sharpened and expanded her perspective, inspiring her to further push social and cultural boundaries with conceptual art.

Fukazawa’s work has been widely exhibited at galleries and museums in both the US and International venues. She has recently shown one-person show at Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles; Gerald Peters Contemporary, Santa Fe, and numerous group shows including at California State University, Los Angeles, and the University of South Florida, Tampa. Museum exhibitions of Fukazawa’s work include Los Angeles County Museum of Art; USC Fisher Museum of Art in Los Angeles; American Craft Museum in New York; and Arlington Museum of Art in Texas. 

Fukazawa’s art has also been widely awarded, including receiving the 2015 Artist in Residency Grant from the Asian Cultural Council in New York City and a 2016 C.O.L.A. Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the City of Los Angeles. She has been nominated by the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2017 Grant in New York and the 2019 Fellow Contemporary Art Fellowship Award program in Los Angeles. 

Her work has been featured in books like “Loaded: Guns in Contemporary Art” by Suzanne Ramljak; “Sex Pot: Eroticism in Ceramics” by Paul Mathieu; “Contemporary Ceramics” by Susan Peterson. She has also been featured in numerous magazines and news articles, including in art ltd., Ceramic Arts and Perception, American Ceramics, Los Angeles Times, and HuffPost.