Born and raised in Japan, Jun Kaneko moved to the United States to study ceramics. Not able to speak the language, he was forced to focus purely on the visual. His painting background is evident in his work, where his monolithic ceramic “dangos” (the Japanese word for dumpling) become three-dimensional, inflated canvases. Working primarily with graphic, yet painterly, lines and dots, his rhythmic designs are analogous with the Japanese Shinto concept of the “Ma”, which loosely translates into “attachment through space”.   He proceeded to study with Peter Voulkos, Paul Soldner, and Jerry Rothman in California during the time now defined as The Contemporary Ceramics Movement in America. The following decade, Jun Kaneko taught at some of the nation’s leading art schools, including Scripps College, Rhode Island School of Design and Cranbrook Academy of Art.