Aaron Scythe

Aaron Scythe was born in Auckland in 1971.  Through a series of encounters and experiences while learning his craft in Sydney he discovered his love for wood firing ceramics and for Japanese & Korean pots.  He explains "when I found 16th century Momoyama Oribe shino pots in a book, their quiet vibrance aroused my artistic spirit, just as Crown Lynn tableware dampened it. 

Momoyama pots are artefacts from a cultural explosion of war and art, a redefining period in Japan, both politically and artistically. They express a wonderfully spontaneous use and freedom of clay, and glaze.  Oribe is a free-flowing way of making, and it’s a philosophy around non-pretentiousness. Leaving emotion in the clay and not hiding the soul through technique. It’s almost an anti-technique and takes a certain type of person to make this work, the suiken, drunken master kung fu style of pottery. The word, oribe, comes from the Samurai, Futura Oribe, who developed the style, and today refers to Japanese style ash glaze. Master potter, Koie Ryoji, makes Oribe.  It’s a style… a feeling, and doesn’t matter whether you use terracotta, porcelain, or clear glaze."    Aaron Scythe speaking in a fascinating article by Theresa Sjoquist.

Aaron worked as a ceramist in Japan for 15 years but left after the Fukushima earthquake in 2011.  Aaron now lives and works in Whanganui and exhibits both in New Zealand and internationally.