Tadashi Mori  森 正

'Enku' show

During the early Edo period, a Buddhist monk named Enku (1632-1695) wandered all over Japan, helping the poor along the way. During his travels, he carved some 120,000 wooden statues of the Buddha. No two were alike, these were not elaborate monuments for self-aggrandizement. Many of the statues were crudely carved from tree stumps or scrap wood with a few strokes of a hatchet. Some were given to comfort those who had lost family members, others to guide the dying on their journeys to the afterlife. Thousands of these wooden statues remain today all over Japan.

 As a young man, Tadashi Mori (b. 1940) aspired to be a sculptor. He once retraced Enku’s footsteps around Japan to see those wood carvings. When Mori found his first job in the design department of a ceramic factory, young ceramists in Japan began to experiment with new ideas. Western thinking and aesthetics found fertile ground among these Japanese artists. In 1964, Mori saw the work of contemporary American ceramists in the International Exhibition of Contemporary Ceramic Art organized by the National Museum of Modern Art in Japan. Inspired by the creative energy of American ceramists, Mori began his life-long quest for his own artistic freedom.

 Eager to experience the art and culture that started the Renaissance, Mori resigned from his job in 1970 and traveled to Rome, Italy. Roaming through the magnificent architecture of another ancient civilization, he realized how much humans need nourishment from culture and art. Upon returning to Japan, he chose to be a full-time artist, committing himself to create highly original works, for which he received many awards. His interest in foreign cultures prompted him to study Thai folk art and travel to Thailand through a Japan-Thailand cultural exchange program. Some of Mori’s most important works, including his monumental pieces entitled "Women Who Like to Whisper", are an amalgam of unique multicultural perspectives. In 1997, Mori was selected among twenty-one noted Japanese artists profiled in a book entitled Toward a 21st Century Renaissance in Ceramics (Dohosha Ltd. publisher), in recognition to their contributions to contemporary Japanese ceramics. The late Peter Voulkos, one of the American artists in the 1964 exhibition in Japan, wrote in this volume: "Their commitment is very ambitious and (their) risk taking generates an excitement that at once transcends the boundaries that have constrained the development of new ideas and possibilities that ceramics can afford."

Mori's long journey of artistic and spiritual discovery culminates in this series of ceramic sculptures entitled the Enlightenment Series. Inspired by Enku's Buddha wood carvings, these ceramic sculptures convey a sense of speed and freedom. They look as if they were created in an instant with one sweeping gesture,  spontaneous, irrepressible, irreproducible. His current show Enku is an artistic tour de force, presenting over two dozen new works. Each piece, adorned with colors traditionally for decorating Buddha statues: red, white, metallic silver and gold, represents a singular moment of enlightenment, an ecstatic instant of sudden freedom, an unspeakable joy of letting go.

Click on images to view selected pieces

Inquiry/order: director@touchingstone.com, see Inquiry/Order

Enlightenment No. 1

Ceramic sculpture   33.5"H x 7" x 5"  (2 views)

Not for sale

Enlightenment No. 3

Ceramic sculpture   15.5"H x 6" x 3"  (2 views)

Enlightenment No. 4

Ceramic sculpture   23"H x 3.5" x 3"  (2 views)

Sold

Enlightenment No. 5

Ceramic sculpture   20"H x 3.5" x 2.5"  (2 views)

Enlightenment No. 6

Ceramic sculpture   20"H x 3" x 3"  (2 views)

Enlightenment No. 7

Ceramic sculpture   19"H x 5.5" x 5.5"  (2 views)

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Enlightenment No. 9

Ceramic sculpture   17"H x 4" x 3"  (2 views)

Enlightenment No. 10

Ceramic sculpture   14"H x 6" x 3"  (2 views)

Enlightenment No. 11

Ceramic sculpture   14"H x 5.5" x 3"  (2 views)

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Enlightenment No. 12

Ceramic sculpture   13"H x 3" x 3"  (2 views)

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Enlightenment No. 13

Ceramic sculpture   14.5"H x 6" x 2"  (2 views)

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Enlightenment No. 14

Ceramic sculpture   12.5"H x 4.5" x 3.5"  (2 views)

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Enlightenment No. 15

Ceramic sculpture   12"H x 7.5" x 4.5"  (2 views)

Enlightenment No. 16

Ceramic sculpture   14"H x 3.5" x 2.5"  (2 views)

Sold

Enlightenment No. 17

Ceramic sculpture   19"H x 3" x 3"  (2 views)

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Enlightenment No. 18

Ceramic sculpture   13.5"H x 5.5" x 3"  (2 views)

Sold

Enlightenment No. 19

Ceramic sculpture   12"H x 7.5" x 3.5"  (2 views)

  Sold

Enlightenment No. 20

Ceramic sculpture   20.5"H x 6" x 3"  (2 views)

Sold

Enlightenment No. 21

Ceramic sculpture   16"H x 4" x 3.5"  (2 views)

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Enlightenment No. 22

Ceramic sculpture   16.5"H x 8" x 3"  (2 views)

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Enlightenment No. 23

Ceramic sculpture   19"H x 5" x 4.5"  (2 views)

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Enlightenment No. 24

Ceramic sculpture   18"H x 8" x 4"  (2 views)

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Enlightenment No. 25

Ceramic sculpture   19"H x 5.5" x 3.5"  (2 views)

Sold

Enlightenment No. 26

Ceramic sculpture   17"H x 7" x 3"  (2 views)

Enlightenment No. 28

Ceramic sculpture   10"H x 8" x 3.5"  (2 views)

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Enlightenment No. 29

Ceramic sculpture   17"H x 4" x 2.5"  (2 views)

Sold

Enlightenment No. 30

Ceramic sculpture   23"H x 4" x 3"  (2 views)

Sold