Crane wife 2

Born in Osaka, Noe Kuremoto grew up between the slopes of Mount Ikoma and the waters of Osaka Bay. She moved to London in the 1990s to study at Central Saint Martins, graduating in fine art with first-class honours, and still lives and works there. Her work has been shown at Christie's London in Secret Ceramics, curated by Kate Malone, and in solo and group exhibitions with Atelier Courbet in New York, La Galerie Volume in Paris and Gallery Wolfsen in Denmark.

Her practice centres on the ancient talismanic figures of Japan: the Haniwa, the Dogū and the Komainu, which for centuries stood as guardians against unseen forces. She sculpts entirely by hand with the simplest of tools, and reinterprets these archaic forms with a directness that is both playful and contemporary. Rooted in the Japanese belief that spirit resides throughout nature, her work treats folklore not as nostalgia but as a living language, and asks what we need protection from today. Recent series extend this inquiry to Japanese folk tales, as in Crane Wife, and to calligraphy, as in Shodō, a return to the daily brush practice of her childhood.

Between ritual and modernity, she makes objects meant to bring the spirit of nature back into the home.