My work is a collection of characters based on human relations and events I have experienced. These are stories, but they don’t have to be my stories, they can be yours. Sometimes you feel like the weight of a turtle standing on top of you and sometimes you feel like an owl standing on top of the world. Some of my characters have a dark nature. I think that is life, sometimes dark things happen. Overall, I want my work to have a sense of hope and a sense of humor because life goes on.
Shoko Teruyama grew up in Mishima, Japan. She earned a BA in education and taught elementary school two years before coming to the United States to study art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1997. Shoko received her MFA in ceramics in the fall of 2005 from Wichita State University. She finished a three-year residency at the Penland School of Crafts in 2008 and is now a studio artist in Marshall, NC.
Shoko's handbuilt work is made of earthenware with white slip and sgraffito decoration. She has developed personal drawings including a variety of vine patterns twisting around bird motifs. To Shoko, the birds represent freedom.
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