Daichiro Shinjo & Jonathan Cross

September 6–October 18, 2025

Blunk Space is pleased to present Daichiro Shinjo and Jonathan Cross, an exhibition bringing together new ink paintings by Okinawa-based Shinjo and new ceramic works by Wonder Valley-based Cross. Through the gestural marks of Shinjo’s brush and the fire-formed shapes of Cross’s clay, both artists engage in a shared conversation with the legacy of JB Blunk—bridging geographies and generations through material, form, and process.

Shinjo began practicing shodō, traditional Japanese calligraphy, at the age of four, carrying forward a lineage of Zen and Okinawan spiritual learning through his grandfather. His forms—organic, rounded, and bold—are shaped by direct, intuitive gestures. Like Blunk, he honors ancient traditional forms while creating space for new expressions, each mark a reflection of its time. During his stay at the Blunk House, Shinjo produced a series of new works on paper and two large paintings on canvas. Though appearing as singular, fluid gestures, each piece is the result of a slow, meditative process. One canvas, made unstretched on the rocky earth outside the studio, now mounted sculpturally, bears the physical traces of that place—grass, dirt, sun, and the curling of wet ink as it dried.

Working in the solitude of California’s High Desert, Cross engages in a quiet dialogue with the land—digging his own clay, firing in a wood kiln, and shaping forms that balance utility and sculpture. His angular, overlapping works echo geological formations, pressing clay into the language of stone. Recent experiments with salt-firing introduce chance into the surface, with ash leaving unpredictable, atmospheric marks. After visiting the Blunk House—where everyday objects blur with sculpture—and sourcing clay near Blunk’s familiar grounds in Nicasio and Tocaloma, Cross has produced plates, platters, planters, and large floor works that reflect this experimental approach to utility. "Everything is sculpture, whether or not you can hold it and drink out of it," Cross notes. "The pieces are complete without the utility."

Together, the works speak to the freedom found in repetition—Shinjo through meditative gestures, Cross through a sustained engagement with raw material. Each artist drills deeply into their practice, arriving at forms that feel both spontaneous and rooted in ancient human and geological histories. In their honest investigation of tradition and place, they draw a thread from the forests of Northern California to the deserts of the West and the islands of Okinawa.