KONNO TOMOKO (1967-) Sprout Heisei era (1989-2019), 2018Property of various ownersKONNO TOMOKO (1967-)Sprout Heisei era (1989-2019), 2018Marbleized, multicolored porcelain, hand-modeled into leaf-like forms and tiers of seed-like cells terminating in a white point, the base with artist's smiley mark 8 x 6 x 6in (20.3 x 15.2 x 15.2cm)From 2012 to 2015 Konno lived and worked in Bali, where she was inspired to start making organic, otherworldly forms out of myriad components of marbleized, multicolored porcelain clay. Like other Japanese women ceramists of her generation, Konno has created a world that is both colorful and grotesque, inspiring conflicting feelings of aesthetic delight and existential dread (see Kaneko Kenji, Igyō no gendai tōgei 2: Bukimi de utsukushii "nanika" [The Grotesque in Contemporary Ceramics, 2: A Creepy, Beautiful "Something"], Nihon Keizai Shinbun, November 14, 2018, evening edition, p. 12).