Yoshihiro Nishiyama
Ishikawa, Japan

B. 1979
GLASSBLOWER

Heralded by lovers of ikebana and wabi-sabi, Yoshihiro Nishiyama creates handmade glassware hundreds of miles from Tokyo in the Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. Light dances through Yoshihiro Nishiyama’s perfectly imperfect glassworks. Deeply influenced by glassware from the Edo, Meiji and Taisho periods, Yoshihiro is a master of Katabuki, a technique that uses a mold into which glass is blown–allowing for extremely light and thin glass with a characteristically expressive surface that “makes you feel like you are floating on the surface of a lake.” In the words of the artist, “Although glass is usually considered cold, in reality it also has warmth and softness, which I try to express.”