Yuta Segawa

Yuta Segawa is a London-based Japanese ceramicist producing miniature wheel-thrown vessels, each one hand-glazed in a unique colourway. The pieces, no taller than a few centimetres, are collected in clusters or displayed individually, bridging craft pottery and sculptural object in a single, quiet gesture.

Every piece is wheel-thrown to scale at Yuta's London studio, usually 2 to 6 centimetres tall, then hand-glazed using a palette he developed over years of experimentation. The scale is the point: full ceramic craft compressed into objects that sit on a shelf rather than a tabletop.

Yuta mixes his own glazes from raw oxides and minerals, which is why no two pieces ever match exactly. The glaze library now runs to hundreds of colourways, and a single piece may be dipped or layered through three or four before firing.

They work best clustered in groups of three to nine on a shelf, plinth or side table, where the variation in colour and form becomes the composition. A single piece reads as a quiet curiosity; a group becomes a considered arrangement.

The vessels are primarily sculptural, their scale precludes most practical use, but smaller cylindrical pieces can hold single stems or small dried arrangements. Most collectors display them as objects rather than flower vessels.