Graduated both in architecture (department of Science and Engineering) and art (Tokyo glass institute), Yoshiaki Kojiro has applied his dual skills to his creations.

He has a strong interest in the process of things getting their forms. Especially, he thinks that the shapes of withered show him well the potential and essential structures more clearly.
So, it has been his good fortune to encounter foaming glass and to find out its property of expansions and contractions with heat and gravity in the firing process. In his creations, it is the prime concern to extract the essential potential of the materials as naked as possible. To realize that, he is trying to bring out the shape into the existence with its innate structure that bases on the material’s transformation as it is.

His simultaneous use of several mediums give his work an important innovative aspect.
For example, he mixes glass powder with lime powder (calcium oxide) or copper oxide powder in a mold, and fires the mixture in an electric kiln. The melting glass confines the gas produced by the other materials. This creates porous lumps of glass that he fires again, then let cool. When gas is finally freed, the shape moves on and cracks appear on the surface. Ultimately, the glass has lost its shape due to gravity, and the non-porous parts come out as a high-density glass.

For the artist, this transformation of the object is a life cycle. His goal is to create forms exploiting the natural properties of glass, and to catch the very moment when the surface cracks.

Yoshiaki won the prestigious Loewe Craft Prize 2017.

Public Collections:
LOEWE Foundation, Madrid, Spain
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
Glasmuseum Lette, Coesfeld , Germany
The Corning Museum of Glass, New York, USA
Lommel City, Belgium
Pinakothek derModerne, Munich, Germany
The European Museum of Modern Glass, Corburg, Germany
Eskisehir – Cagdas Cam Sanatlari Muzesi – Modern Glass Art Museum, Eskisehir, Turkey
Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung, Munich, Germany
Toyama Glass Art Museum, Toyama
Kanazawa Utatsuyama Kogei Kobo, Ishikawa