“Takaezu was inspired by historical precedents—in her case, East Asian pots and calligraphy—and found ways to transform these idioms to make them relevant to contemporary art. Most obviously, this involved sheathing her ceramics in glorious veils and supervening splashes of glaze, in implicit dialogue with Abstract Expressionism. She also activated her work in another, subtler way, by introducing loose rattles of fired clay inside her closed forms, making them into kinetic, sounding sculptures.”

—Glenn Adamson, art historian