This elegant monograph marks Shio Kusaka's first solo exhibition with Gagosian and her first exhibition in Italy. Shio Kusaka's ceramic work often incorporates playful details and subject matter, from basketballs and fruit to dinosaurs, raindrops, and wood grain. However, in this new body of work, she further explores her geometric abstractions, offering a more direct view of her technical mastery as she adheres to a single-process approach to study the possibility of endless permutations. In previous abstract works, Kusaka often ended a line or grid pattern once it became distorted by the curvature of the pot, producing fragmented, interlocking patterns that appear as overlapping drawings, contradicting the three-dimensional volume. In these new works, however, she takes an almost topographic approach by carving, painting, and even drawing with pencil intricate lines along the surfaces of each pot, allowing the shape of each vessel to dictate the curves of the lines.

This catalog serves as a fully illustrated look into the world of artists Jonas Wood and Shio Kusaka, published in conjunction with the artists’ debut exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong. Both Kusaka’s porcelain vessels and Wood’s drawn and painted interiors are depicted within this new book in vibrant color plates and photographs. Wood and Kusaka draw from each other’s work as painter and potter to probe the tensions between representation and expression, precision and chance, and influences from art history and life. An insightful new text by art critic Chris Wiley accompanies color images of Wood and Kusaka at their shared studio on Blackwelder Street in Los Angeles, where they work alongside one another to create works that draw from personal memory and their shared existence as a married couple. This book was produced with Karma, NY.

Shio Kusaka’s ceramic vessels articulate poetic connections, creating a cohesive and unique installation. “It’s a striking effect—some pieces are bowl-shaped, others are cylindrical, a few have slim, sloping necks. Their linear arrangement suggests some kind of progression through time and space.” —Document Journal While pulling inspiration and techniques from ancient Japanese ceramics as well as from popular culture and everyday life, Kusaka carves new language into her artwork. Employing various types of clay and firing methods, she experiments with line, color, and size to bring fresh life to the medium. This harmonious presentation is created from individual pieces and thematic groupings—similar in their materiality, hue, and display—resulting in an extraordinary, unified installation to be experienced in the round. With many detail images, this book provides a deep dive into Kusaka’s incredible work one light year. Published after Kusaka’s hugely successful exhibition at David Zwirner, New York, in 2022, this catalogue studies her singular installation from all angles. The acclaimed poet Adrienne Raphel writes an accompanying text discussing Kusaka’s world-building approach and offering her own associations with the artist’s work.

Although Kusaka and Wood work independently, their mutual influences are palpable. This is hardly surprising: they not only live together but also share a single studio. Their art is as intertwined as their lives.0Kusaka?s work consists of elegant pots and vases in all shapes and sizes. It reflects diverse influences: traditional Japanese techniques, for instance, but also the geometrical patterns of contemporary artists such as Agnes Martin. Wood?s paintings of plants and interiors blur the lines between figurative and abstract art. The recognizable, distorted perspectives in his plant still lifes and portraits testify to influences from areas of art history as distinct as cubism, pop art, and artists such as David Hockney.0The mutual influences are immediately apparent in Wood?s paintings of Kusaka?s pots and objects, which in turn borrow patterns from his work such as elements of sport and everyday shapes. What we see is a constant visual dance and an ever-evolving interaction between subject and object, between observer and observed. When we look a little further, we also see a mutual fascination with geometry on the one hand and imperfection on the other. While Wood?s perspectives are always slightly askew and his shapes two-dimensional, her pots and vases are seldom symmetrical or entirely round.00Exhibition: Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, The Netherlands (30.09.2017-07.01.2018).

The first monograph on a rising star who is one of contemporary art's most celebrated painters Los Angeles-based artist Jonas Wood creates vivid images, where space and everyday life are rendered with compressed perspective in bold graphic hues. This monograph - the first on the artist's work - brings together his most significant paintings and drawings. In doing so, it offers a unique insight into the vast array of his sources, which include family photographs, found imagery, baseball cards, and other people's art, including the ceramics of his wife, the artist Shio Kusaka. With contributions by curator and writer Helen Molesworth, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York Ian Alteveer, and a conversation between Wood and fellow Los Angeles-based artist Mark Grotjahn.

This vibrant monograph marks the first major survey of Jonas Wood's printmaking. Jonas Wood is inspired by the domestic worlds of plants and household objects, vases, flowers, and basketballs. Through these familiar objects, Wood explores art historical modes such as perspective and abstraction. Tracing the evolution of Wood's unique visual vocabulary through his printing practice, this catalogue reveals his understanding of line, shape, and color, and how that allows him to seamlessly transpose the vividness of his paintings into print. In more than fifty limited edition prints produced between 2004 and 2018, Wood explores visual themes such as museum interiors, tennis courts, logos, and ceramics; effectively examining the immediacy of everyday life while referencing art history and several of art's most accomplished practitioners, including Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, David Hockney, and Ed Ruscha. The prints--produced in the print studios of Cirrus Editions Ltd., Counter Editions, Hamilton Press, Wavelength Press, and more--also attest to the importance of collaboration in Wood's work.