Artist Statement: Exploring Makoto Hatori's Artistic Works and Philosophy

 
Clay: A Dialogue with Being

My journey in ceramics began as a quiet dialogue between philosophy, material, and being. Clay―both fragile and enduring―became for me not merely a medium of form, but a living field of correspondence between the visible and the unseen. Each gesture on the wheel, each trace of fire, carries within it an inquiry into existence itself.

Through years of practice, I have sought to reveal the inner resonance between matter and spirit, between transformation and stillness. Unglazed ceramics, in particular, have offered a pathway toward essence: a form of creation that resists ornamentation and instead listens to the silent language of earth. Within this silence, a philosophy unfolds, one that honors impermanence while quietly affirming continuity.

Moments of Transformation (1969–2012)

Over the course of my career, each exhibition has marked not an endpoint, but a phase in an unfolding rhythm―a movement between reflection and renewal. These exhibitions came to embody the shifting cadence of my artistic path: a gentle unfolding of form, material, and thought through time. Each moment offered a subtle challenge to convention, a gesture toward plurality, and a deepening inquiry into the interplay between tradition and transformation. Through them, I have sought to share not only ceramics but also the silent, enduring philosophy that continues to shape my creative process.

Honoring the Past, Embracing the Present

The dialogue between traditional ceramics and contemporary art remains a central motif in my practice. By placing unglazed, traditional works alongside modern pieces, I seek to reveal the quiet harmony between inherited values and evolving perspectives. Tradition offers not only aesthetic guidance but also philosophical depth―illuminating the balance between nature, essential value, and the core of creation.

One of the perennial challenges in engaging with tradition while embracing modernity is finding equilibrium: to honor inherited forms while allowing space for transformation. Though I hold deep reverence for the philosophy of traditional unglazed ceramics, I also recognize the necessity of integrating new materials and ideas to sustain relevance within the contemporary context. Yet these tensions are not obstacles but fertile ground. By weaving together the aesthetics and spirit of tradition with the inquiries of the present age, I invite viewers to contemplate the evolving relationship between the past and the present. While I may not carry the full philosophical lineage of tradition, I have come to embrace modern perspectives on nature, value, and the creative act. My spirituality continues to resonate with the quiet power of unglazed pottery―where transformation is forged in fire, and existence emerges through material. Works born of this ethos now reside in the collections of institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum, where the spirit of tradition and the breath of modernity quietly converge.

In this continual dialogue between past and present, I have learned that the true voice of creation does not arise from theory or inheritance alone, but from a posture of listening―listening to the silent language of material itself. It is from this quietude that the next chapter unfolds.

Continuing the dialogue between tradition and modernity, I have come to more deeply embrace a contemplative ethos rooted in Japanese aesthetics―an ethos that privileges listening and response over imposition. This orientation did not arise suddenly; it has gradually deepened from its earliest stages, shaped by the enduring turbulence of post-war Japan and the idealism that marked my student years. Amid the prevailing climate of political uncertainty and moral disarray, I turned toward the ethical and aesthetic core of Japanese art―seeking within it a compass for practice and a quiet path of resistance through creation.

The Discovery of Non-Color (非色)

“Vessels: Otherness,” exhibited at the International Triennial of Silicate Art in Hungary (2014), comprised twelve traditionally fired vessels, each arranged to evoke a quiet tension between form and immanence. For me, the encounter between flame and human presence during firing became a retrospective search for the unmediated―a gesture toward openness. I sought to question the notion of autonomy often inherent in the vessel form and instead to explore its potential to become an event: a moment in which matter engages the outside world and manifests a state of being. This was an attempt to liberate the conceptual “vessel,” returning it―if only for an instant―to the realm of primordial matter and unmediated transformation.

Through such explorations, my attention gradually shifted from the vessel as form to the act of making itself―toward the moment when matter and gesture become indistinguishable. My journey in ceramics led me to move beyond artificial glazes―to renounce surface embellishment and turn instead toward the essence of the medium: clay in its unadorned state. This was not merely a technical choice but a philosophical one―a quiet act of reverence for the material, for its innate beauty, its spiritual depth, and its capacity to embody meaning without adornment.

In works presented at the International Ceramic Symposium in Lithuania and the Korea International Ceramic Biennale, I explored the subtle tension between ceramics and other materials, seeking to evoke new sensibilities through their interaction. These works question the limitations of self-contained forms, revealing how representation often fails to capture the deeper essence of existence―its presence and its perpetual becoming.

My participation in the Lithuanian symposium marked a turning point. In that workshop setting, the absence of a wood-fired kiln meant I could not rely on natural ash glaze. Confronted with this constraint, I chose not to apply glaze at all. This decision―born of necessity―unlocked a new path: the path of white. It was there that I realized the pursuit of natural ash glaze, when followed to its logical depth, leads not to glaze but to its profound absence. For me, clay is not a surface upon which to impose intention, but a presence to be listened to. It is a quiet field of correspondence between earth and hand. The absence of glaze is not a void but an act of humility―an invitation for the material to speak in its own silent language.

The path of white gradually revealed itself as both material and metaphor―a quiet continuation of my search for essences. In my approach to ceramics―what I call natural or unglazed ceramics―I draw inspiration from the traditional Japanese concept of natural ash glaze and its inherent aesthetic sensibility. By departing from the conventional act of glazing and firing to completion, I seek to challenge prevailing ideals of perfection in ceramic art. Within the traditional Japanese concept of natural glaze lies a profound worldview―one shaped by restraint, imperfection, and quiet transformation. I aim to shift the paradigm from the pursuit of perfection through glaze to an embrace of non-color―a state rooted in the tacit presence of clay itself.

This exploration culminated in my work exhibited at the 35th International Ceramic Competition in L’Alcora, under the theme “Non-color.” There, I explored white not as a color, but as a paradox―a field of both embodiment and decolorization, of mind and matter held in dynamic tension. White, in this context, becomes a symbol of the unknown and the uncharted―a threshold I call 非色 (Non-color). This notion of Non-color has since become the foundation of my artistic identity. By layering white upon both my works and myself, I sought to purify perception and dissolve inherited assumptions.

As my inquiry deepened, I began to explore new dialogues between materials―between the earthy density of ceramics and the tensile resonance of iron. Their encounter was not a matter of contrast alone but an inquiry into how differing substances might share a single pulse of existence. In the Physicality series, these two materials confront one another through their physicality, yet both embody a living stillness―a quiet tension that renders their relationship fluid and unresolved. Iron, with its weight and permanence, meets clay’s pliant fragility in a moment of poised contradiction. Paper, in contrast, emerges as fragmented matter imbued with potential function. It becomes a dance encircling the spiritual―a gesture of motion revolving around stillness. Together, these material worlds―ceramic, iron, and paper (drawing)―generate relationships that transcend both intention and containment, opening a liminal space where gesture becomes thought.

In 2020, as the pandemic descended, familiar boundaries between subject and object seemed to collapse. We were confronted with the unforeseeable―the incomprehensible. In response, I turned to the traditional practices of sumi-e or suiboku-ga (ink-wash painting), seeking to reaffirm the integrity of subject and object through gesture.

By employing brush-like lines to embody the physicality of both mind and body, I conceived the Physicality series as an intellectual suiboku-ga―a landscape not of ink, but of clay and thought.

The Art of Unfinished Resonance

Ultimately, my central theme is Non-color―an aesthetic that embodies the essence of traditional Japanese natural glaze (or its deliberate absence), while expressing the memory and perpetual transformation of the physical body through conscious restraint. Each material, gathered within a unified form, serves an essential role in the manifestation of my art. The unglazed ceramic, with a texture reminiscent of washi paper and a soft, milky-white surface, evokes a sense of the spiritual realm. In contrast, the non-ceramic element―destined for dissolution―signifies the transient, perceptual world.

All things exist in flux, within an endless cycle of life, death, and renewal. This ceaseless transformation discloses the very nature of being itself―and within this rhythm, I quietly superimpose my own presence. In this quiet dialogue between permanence and transience, between the visible and the unseen, my work seeks neither completion nor finality. It remains open―an ongoing resonance between earth and spirit, between what is made and what continues to become.

My body of ceramic work stands as the culmination of a lifelong inquiry into the relationship between philosophy, material, and being itself. It is not an assertion but a meditation―a continual dialogue between presence and absence, restraint and expression. These works do not seek to explain; they aim to awaken reflection on the precarity of being, the inevitability of transformation, and the quiet persistence of matter through time.

In much contemporary ceramics, a disquieting separation from materiality has emerged. Ornament and concept often eclipse the essence of form, and the living dialogue between hand, earth, and fire grows faint. Yet it is precisely within this silence that I hear the call to return―to reinhabit the origin where touch, thought, and substance once converged.

To reclaim the artistic mission is to restore this communion: to let the hand think and to allow the clay to remember. Through the disciplined commitment of making, material becomes more than matter―becoming consciousness itself, a mirror of the mind that shapes it.

Guided by both tradition and contemporaneity, my practice seeks not mere continuity but renewal: to translate the metaphysical depth of Japanese ceramics into a living discourse that resonates beyond its cultural boundaries. This journey moves freely between the inherited and the emergent, the seen and the invisible―revealing ceramics as an art of transformation rather than permanence. Ultimately, my aspiration is to sustain a mode of creation that embodies humility, clarity, and reverence for the natural order―so that the art of ceramics remains a vessel of thought, carrying the tacit pulse of existence into the future.