Jun Kaneko was born in Nagoya, Japan in 1942. He moved to the United States in 1963 and established his current studio in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1990.

He is known all over the world for his large scale ceramic sculptures although he has worked in many different media, such as the bronze he used for two of these heads. He started his career as a painter and then began working in ceramics. He has done drawings, bronze casting and glass and even designed the sets and costumes for the opera Madame Butterfly in 2006. His best-known works are his large-scale abstract ceramic sculptures, some of which are seven feet tall. Some of his later work is even larger. The heads represented on this poster are about six feet tall and are like his other sculptures in their interest in simple forms and interesting textures.

Jun Kaneko thinks it is important to be spontaneous in the way he works. He often starts with one idea and changes it to something entirely different by the time he is finished. The process of making the work gives him new ideas. He keeps works that he doesn’t like because he thinks he can learn from them. He usually doesn’t give his works titles because he wants people to respond directly to the work not interpret it based on a title.

Jun knew that he wanted to be an artist by the age of 19. He studied painting in Japan, working in his studio during the day and going to high school in the evening. His first painting teacher, Satoshi Ogawa, allowed him to paint and draw whatever he wanted and then gave him feedback. Kaneko advises that aspiring artists must find materials in which they can make a visual statement. For him making art is a way of living and a necessity.