According to Japanese Kegon Buddhism, the one-ness of the universe is the result of all the phenomena making it up fusing together. All existence depends upon the unification of opposites. Thus form exists only in relation to formlessness, the tangible only to the intangible; "something" can only be because there is also "nothing." The moment the opposites are united, they become real. A shape derives from the moment formlessness encounters form.
Reflecting his ability to seize that precise moment and freeze it for eternity, Kuroda's white porcelain is about much more than what might simply be described as "bowl" or "vase." When the clay is on the potter's wheel and turned very slowly, it is subjected to centrifugal force driving it away from the centre but also to gravitational force pushing it in from the outside. Kuroda senses the exact moment when the two forces reach a point of equilibrium, and his hand enters the clay. Working within this fragment of time locked in the material, he expands the nothingness from the centre outwards, drawing this moment out into something eternal. Defined by the relationship between the void inside the object and the material outside defining it, the completed work seems poised perfectly between existence and non-existence, life and death. Kuroda's white porcelain is always a masterpiece of balance. Retaining the freshness of the spur of a moment for all time, it has all the fragile beauty and wondrous vitality of a living thing just born.
© Nobuhiro Yamaguchi
