Toshiaki Noda (b. 1982) is a New York-based artist working primarily in ceramic sculpture as well as mixed media sculpture.

He was born in Arita, Saga Prefecture, Japan—a region noted for its remarkable porcelain ceramics dating back to the 1600s—to ceramic-dealing parents. Toshiaki has deeply engaged in ceramic art and Japanese calligraphy since his childhood. Movement and expression is at the core of his practice. Growing up in this unique aesthetic and cultural context has greatly influenced Toshiaki’s studio practice.

Toshiaki studied ceramics at Arita Technical High School and completed the visual arts program at California State University Long Beach (BFA), where he focused on printmaking. After graduating, he moved to New York City, where he started his career as an artist, concentrating on ceramics as his primary medium. His printmaking education combined with his aesthetic and technical training in Japan provides a unique perspective to his ceramic practice.

Unlike the smooth, consistent surface of the Imari wares, Toshiaki uses the plasticity of clay to create gestural and animated forms, and the alchemy of glaze to explore texture and color. His sculpting process includes hand-building, wheel-throwing, carving, stacking, undoing, and redoing with no predetermined endpoint.

Toshiaki’s work lies at the intersection of materiality, pottery, craft, design, sculpture, and the history of ceramics. He often starts with the general forms of man-made objects, such as garments, shoes, buckets, stacked egg cartons, boxes, bricks, traditional tea bowls, and flower vases. Then, he alters, disturbs, and reenvisions these forms Intuitively and improvisationally until he discovers an intersection of sadness, irony, transience, humor, and aesthetics. He sees many conceptual resemblances between man-made objects and clay in terms of transformation, fragility, degradation, life, and death.

Many of his sculptures go through this process where common-object forms are abstracted and become idiosyncratic, thus creating a new sense of realism.

Toshiaki’s recent exhibitions include an exhibit at OV Project in Brussels (2022), Patricia Sweetow Gallery in San Francisco (2021); Issues from the Hands at Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo (2017); and exhibitions in New York City and Milan, Italy. His work is included in The William Louis Dreyfus Foundation. He is a recipient of a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist fellowship. Toshiaki’s works have been reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Sculpture Magazine.

Education

2001  Ceramic Program, Arita Technical High School, Japan

2008  BFA in Printmaking, California State University, Long Beach, CA

Exhibitions

2024 Feels Like Home (Group exhibition), JDJ,  New York City, NY

2022 Group exhibition, Patricia Sweetow Gallery,  San Francisco, CA

2022 Two-person exhibition, OV Project,  Brussels, Belgium

2021 Two-person exhibition, Patricia Sweetow Gallery,  San Francisco, CA

2018 Tomio Koyama Gallery: Works from the Gallery Artists and the Collection 3 (Group Exhibition),  8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery,  Tokyo, Japan

2018   Art Fair Tokyo 2018, with Tomio Koyama Gallery,  Tokyo, Japan

2018 Toshiaki Noda Ceramic Art Exhibition (Two-person exhibition), Patricia Sweetow Gallery,  San Francisco, CA

2017   Issues from the Hands (Solo Exhibition),  8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery,  Tokyo, Japan

2016 Solo Exhibition,  Spun Smoke,  Oakland, CA

2016   The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell (Group Exhibition), Sculpture Space NYC, Long Island City, NY

2016   Call The Bluff by Beatrice Scaccia (Sculpture Contribution), Cara Gallery, New York City, NY

2016   Art Market San Francisco  (Art Fair), with Patricia Sweetow Gallery,  San Francisco, CA

2015   Solo Exhibition, Spun Smoke Gallery, Oakland, CA

2015   Art Market San Francisco  (Art Fair), with Patricia Sweetow Gallery,  San Francisco, CA

2014   Little Gloating Eve (Collaborative Exhibition), Cuchifritos Gallery, New York City, NY

2014   Little Gloating Eve (Collaborative Exhibition), Effearte Gallery, Milan, Italy

2014   5 Solos (Duo Exhibition), TF Cornerstone, Long Island City, NY

2014   LIC Arts Open (Group Exhibition), Gotham Building, Long Island City, NY

2013   EU iGual (Collaborative Exhibition), Raku2 Gallery, Yokohama, Japan 

2008   Printmaking (Solo Exhibition), Dutzi Gallery at California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, CA 

2008   Ink (Group Exhibition), Marylin Werby Gallery at California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, CA

2007   Love Life Lust (Group Exhibition), La Mano Press, Los Angeles, CA 

2007   MInd Your P's and D's (Group Exhibition), I-5 Gallery in The Brewery Arts Colony, Los Angeles, CA 

2007   Insights:2007 (Group Exhibition), University Art museum at California State University Long Beach, Long Beach, CA 

 Collections

The William Louis Dreyfus Foundation

Awards

2017   The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) /The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Artist Fellowship 

Media

2018 Sculpture Magazine - A Publication of the International Sculpture Center

https://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag18/oct_18/oct18_reviews.shtml

2015   96hours San Francisco Chronicle Interview

http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Finley-and-Noda-Imagination-flourishes-with-6277349.php#photo-8006019