Tomonari is a Japanese artist from Wakayama, Japan. After completing a PHD in Fine Art specialised in Ceramics, Tomonari moved to Shigaraki to pursue his creative practice and participate in a residency at the ‘Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park’. 

Tomonari has held several solo exhibitions in Asia and has been selected to be a part of numerous group exhibitions such as Collect Art Fair in London and multiple competitions. 

His works are exhibited in several museum collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Loewe Foundation being one of youngest finalists at the "LOEWE Craft Prize".

" I seek the intangible, but something, like an energy or presence, that surely exists to us human consciousness, through forming clay into a shell that contains such intangible. It is something not understood at the moment, but through experiencing over time.

The work is built through accumulation of clay and never carved away. It is fired with a glaze saturated with metal oxides, then again fired and carbonized to bring out the character of the metals onto the surface. I have to build a kiln specific to each of my work every time I fire to carbonize them.

The whole process from forming the clay, glazing, firing, building a kiln, then again firing, sets an order to myself as an individual, and it, the whole process, is the time to face my inner self. The pursuit of the intangible has led me to the concept of Introspection." T.H

Alissa Volchkova

Aude Soulain

Jean Yves Lanvin

Marc Bankowsky

Victoria Wilmotte