KELLY AKASHI
Artist, educator, and curator Kelly Sumiko Akashi is well known in Los Angeles for her nimble mind and dexterous hands. A genuinely curious person, she enjoys visiting different places and observing a wide range of plants and creatures. Her mixed-media sculptures, utilizing materials such as glass, wax, bronze, stainless steel, and rope, reflect her biophilia and her interests in physiology and epistemology. Born in Los Angeles in 1983, she is part of a new cohort of artists who are radically reviving the studio glass movement by shifting the focus from craftsmanship toward expanding the medium’s potential for artistic expression.
A visit to Akashi’s studio in September when Covid-19 was still spreading relentlessly in Los Angeles mandated many preventive measures: wearing masks, maintaining social distance, and disinfecting surfaces and hands every few minutes. Despite the dire glass ellipsoids, biomorphic glass vessels shaped like a space capsule or cannonball jellyfish, and serpentine chandeliers are suspended from the ceiling. Cameras, tools, giant glass flowers, and cast hands occupy the tabletops. Delicate artifacts are on display in cabinets; supplies labeled in Italian and books are stacked high on shelves. Wax-melting stations, boxes, and the remnants of her February show in New York at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery—including the turned-wood pedestals in the pattern of the artist’s echocardiogram and the mold for casting (2020), a large bronze sphere—populate the floor.
