Kento Saisho

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.

In this solo show entitled THINGS, Saisho presented a body of work “cumulatively made from almost 5,000 feet of steel rod that built up by coiling and welding together, inch by inch, to create organic volumetric forms. The heavily worked surfaces of these pieces are rough, highly textured and often striated, hearkening more to an object made of rough stone or ceramic than industrial steel. The repeated application of texture imbue the surfaces with themes of ritual, evoking the appearance of primitive objects that could be unearthed from a burial mound or dredged up from a shipwreck. Through this work, Saisho questions, “How can an object and material accumulate and reflect its history?”"