"What The" by Esther Shimazu

Bald and chunky, Esther Shimazu’s quirky clay figures are unabashedly naked and delightfully indulgent. Drawing up on her Japanese ancestry and experience living in a laid-back Asian community in Hawaii, the artist imbues her figures with a delightful sense of humanity. Shimazu uses hand-buidling techinques to construct the clay figures. After the pieces are colored with slips and oxides and fired, she hand sands them and rubs in or airbrushes on pigments to create a sense of volume and lifelike color.