Painting with Fire

While most painters work with colours and brushes, Taiwanese artist Joyce Lin paints her ceramics with blaze and fire. Represented by Eastern Aesthete, Lin is a modern-day alchemist, infusing ancient traditions into her breathtaking creations and reviving the centuries-old craft of Konoha Tenmoku ware.

Over a thousand years ago, in China’s Jizhou district of Jiangxi province, a leaf serendipitously fell on a Tenmoku bowl awaiting the kiln’s heat. The leaf’s veins turned to gold, delicately adorning the pitch-black tea bowl like stars in the night sky. The event marked the birth of Konoha Tenmoku tea bowls, which would soon be coveted for their radiant symbolism by imperial families and scholars during the Song Dynasty.

Konoha Tenmoku once teetered on the brink of extinction due to the wars and unrest brought about by the ruthless horsemen of Genghis Khan. For seven centuries, the craft was lost without leaving any written records. It wasn’t until the 1980s that diligent pottery-makers from its birthplace finally rediscovered the process.

Lin has always been intrigued by the concept of Konoha Tenmoku. The ancient art form beautifully captures the fragility of leaves, transforming them through the power of fire. Fueled by her passion, Lin set forth on a quest to rediscover these forgotten techniques. The decades-long journey was no small feat.

For centuries, the scarcity of Tenmoku tea bowls posed production challenges for artisans of the craft. Creating these bowls involved subjecting them to intense heat. The “firing” process of Tenmoku tea bowls included hundreds of steps, in addition to the already intricate pottery-making process. Remarkably, the leaves set on these cups remained intact despite the high temperatures.

After apprenticing under several master craftsmen and performing countless experiments with unyielding patience and perseverance, Lin finally crafted her breathtaking pieces. Each piece that comes out of Lin’s workshop is truly one of a kind. No two leaves are identical in the universe, and each production process—with every variable taken into account such as moisture, temperature, log loading time, and kiln conditions—ensures that the wares capture that quality.

“Each of my creations is unique because of the distinctiveness of every leaf. Replicating a piece becomes nearly impossible, and that quality makes the work even more special,” Lin says.