Hiroki Iwata

Hiroki Iwata is a Japanese metal artist whose works often combine metal and enamel. Through extremely rigorous craftsmanship, he integrates different structures into a unified surface and cohesive whole. His vessel works embody a sense of rational order, with form and material presenting a rhythmic cadence.

Graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts, Iwata received rigorous training in metal, which laid the foundation for his later in-depth experimentation with materials and structures. He currently serves as a senior professor at Tokyo University of the Arts, where he contributes to education and the transmission of traditional craft research, allowing his practice and teaching to mutually inform one another. At the same time, as Chairman of the Japan Enamelling Artists Association (since 2003) and a member of the Japan Craft Design Association, he holds significant influence within the field of metal and enamel art in Japan and actively participates in international craft and academic exchange.

Iwata pays particular attention in his practice to the subtle variations of light and shadow in everyday life that are easily overlooked. Through the tension between metal and enamel, his vessels allow light to flow across different surfaces, revealing traces of time inscribed in material. While the vessels maintain a high degree of restraint as a whole, they continuously release variation and rhythm in their details. Structure and surface resonate with one another in his works, jointly guiding the rhythm of viewing and allowing the viewer’s gaze to move slowly across the vessel, as if progressing along a trajectory of time.

Iwata’s vessels invite viewers to look with a slower and more attentive gaze. He reactivates another layer of meaning of the crafted object as a “container”: not only a holder of objects, but also a vessel for memory, time, and reflection. In this mode of viewing, the vessel becomes a bridge connecting everyday experience with introspective contemplation.