Artist and designer living and working in Japan
An international exchange helped shape a design practice connecting Scottish education with Japanese craft and manufacturing.
Kathleen Reilly developed a love for Japanese design while studying Silversmithing and Jewellery at GSA, when she travelled to Hiko Mizuno College of Jewellery in Tokyo through the exchange programme.
After graduating in 2015, she completed a master’s degree at the Royal College of Art. In 2019 she returned to Japan through a prestigious scholarship from the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, spending 19 months developing her metalworking skills.
During the scholarship Kathleen developed the Oku knife with highly skilled craftspeople in Tsubame-Sanjo, a town with a 400-year history of metalworking. Its folded handle is influenced by traditional Japanese place settings and allows the knife to interact with objects on the table in new ways.
The Oku knife received Dezeen’s Homeware Design of the Year award in 2022 and was exhibited at London Design Festival in 2024. Kathleen continues to live and work in Japan, combining her artistic practice with guest teaching and research collaborations in Japan and the UK.
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