Originally from Hirakata-shi, Osaka, Japan, Noriko is now based in her garden studio at her home in North London.

Noriko first encountered ceramics when living in Japan but didn’t start working with clay until many years later after she had moved to the UK and was working for a Japanese fashion company. During this time, she was inspired by the designers and creatives that worked in the fashion industry.

To gain hands-on skills, Noriko began attending pottery courses over a two-year period at The Working Man’s college and later at Ricky Grimes’s studio in Muswell Hill. Later, she joined the Turning Earth studio in Hoxton, and honed her throwing skills, glazing techniques and began developing a process utilizing gravity in her designs, layering different glazes.

Noriko creates nature inspired collections of thrown tableware using white stoneware clay. Initially developing her glazing style at Turning Earth, she continues to experiment with glazing, which she finds is the most significant and defining part of her process besides creating the specific shapes.

I enjoy using a layering glaze style and gravity to create one-of-a-kind ceramics.

Noriko is inspired by nature, and names the collections she creates with titles that refer to nature, e.g., Mori which means forest in Japanese, Nami which translates as ocean waves, dawn, sky, mountains, waterfalls, winter field, snow on moss and animals. The ‘croco’ range refers to crocodile skin. Sometimes the glazes suggest the name, once she sees the effects created during firing.

Noriko is influenced and inspired by the Japanese master potter Shoji Hamada, his spontaneous designs and clean shapes are what she strives to achieve in her own work.