Embracing imperfection

Masanobu Ando started his career creating contemporary art and studying Buddhism. Following this period, he channeled his influence derived from Zen culture into his works and began creating functional objects for daily life. In 1988, he remodeled an original Japanese ceremonial teahouse in his hometown of Tajimi into a gallery called Galerie Momogusa. His works are predominantly slab-built, using sheets of clay that are molded together to form a variety of shapes – a technique called tatara that the artisan naturally embraced as it enabled expression of his underlying concept of Zen culture, which is centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.