CERAMIC TILES BY MEGUMI NAITOH at FULLER CRAFT MUSEUM

Tuesday, 23 January 2007 21:46

Brockton, MA – Technology and craft come together in artist Megumi Naitoh’s series of Bitmapped Characters.  Combining ceramic tile making with digital photography the Massachusetts artist creates innovative and illustrative pixilated portraits.  On exhibit at Fuller Craft Museum March 10 – June 17, 2007 Bitmapped Characters: Ceramic Tiles by Megumi Naitoh presents ten recent works that represent an important step in the evolution of contemporary craft.

Artist Megumi Naitoh has always been fascinated with traditional mosaics and draws inspiration from Byzantine and Roman tiles to reanimate the media with contemporary methods.  Naitoh says, “I am interested in exhibiting visuals that articulate the overpowering of current technology.  For the past five years I have been working with pixilated images that are a reflection of the fast-paced and frequently uncontrollable aspects of technology.”

Beginning with digital photographs of friends, Naitoh downloads the images to her computer and separates the colors to make a silk screen which is glazed onto clay.  The piece is then fired, cut into thousands of tiny tiles and mounted onto Plexiglas in grid formation, similar to pixels in a digital photograph.  The resulting works are mosaic with over twenty layers of prints and six colors of underglazes.  The color, size and texture combine to create unique mosaic portraits that reveal intimate details about the subject, artist and viewer.

About Fuller Craft Museum
Fuller Craft Museum, New England’s home for contemporary craft, is dedicated to the objects, ideas, and insight that inspire both patrons and artists to explore life through the art of contemporary craft.  Craft is an art discipline that is both intriguing and accessible.  Its roots are in the creation of functional objects, but today, craft has come to be more closely aligned with the inspired ideas of artists who work primarily with their hands in materials that are tactile and familiar.  Fuller Craft offers a collection, exhibitions, demonstrations, workshops and special events where you can literally touch the materials and objects.  Fuller Craft Museum is the most exciting place to be in the world of contemporary craft.  Visit : www.fullercraft.org