ARTIST INFO

KENTO SAISHO
Los Angeles, CA

IRON | Sculptural objects and vessels

Penland Affiliation | Penland Core Fellow 2018-2020

Artist Information | Studio artist; education: BFA Rhode Island School of Design, Windgate-Lamar Fellowship (RI); exhibitions: Things, OpenMindArt Space (CA), Tender Presence Traveling Exhibition (IL, VA, NC)Amos Eno Gallery (NY), Gelman Gallery (RI), Boston Design Center (MA), Pawtucket Armory Arts Center (RI), Toe River Arts Council (NC), awards: 2021 Emerging Artist Cohort, American Craft Council, 2022 Career Advancement Grant, Center for Craft

Artist Bio | Kento Saisho (he/him) is an artist and metalworker currently based in Los Angeles, CA. He makes vigorously textured and tactile sculptural objects, vessels, and contemporary artifacts in steel that utilize and push the material’s potential for transformation. Born and raised in Salinas, CA, he graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2016, where he was a Windgate-Lamar Fellowship recipient from the Center for Craft in Asheville, NC. Following this, he completed the Core Fellowship at the Penland School of Craft from 2018 – 2020.

Artist Statement | Working with steel, I create objects, vessels, and contemporary artifacts. My practice harnesses and pushes steel’s limitless capacity for transformation. At high temperatures, steel can be as soft, malleable, and tactile as clay, and through this property, I stack, coil, and shape metal to create textured and organic forms. These forms are then patched and welded together and are subsequently burnt, abraded, painted, exposed to acids and patinas, or sometimes left bare. My work often references objects from antiquity: primal objects and vessels from the past – fragments that we project meaning onto. Through interrogating the potential for new expressions in metal, I want to expand the language of the material and expand the field for the contemporary vessel in steel.