Exhibition: Kensho: Taizo Kuroda & Sousai Inada — Tristan Hoare Gallery

Tristan Hoare presents Kensho, an exhibition of works by Japanese ceramicist Taizo Kuroda and calligrapher Bokujin Sousai Inada. Through ink and earth, vessel and character, Kuroda and Inada engage in a deeply introspective exploration of how form can emerge through repetition, restraint, and self-reflection.

The title Kensho, a Zen Buddhist term meaning ‘seeing one’s true essence’, provides a conceptual foundation for the connection between Kuroda and Inada. It refers to the pursuit, shared by both artists, of accessing something beyond form and material through sustained repetition and refinement. As Bokujin Sousai Inada has stated, ‘the greatest theme for me is how to move the structure of a script to its utmost’.

Born three years apart, Taizo Kuroda (b.1946 - d.2021) and Bokujin Sousai Inada (b.1949) belong to a generation of Japanese artists that emerged in the decades following the Second World War, when questions of cultural identity, modernity, and tradition occupied a central place in artistic discourse. Across disciplines, artists sought new modes of expression that could reconcile centuries-old artistic traditions with contemporary ideas and international movements. It is within this context that both Kuroda and Inada developed their practices, articulating highly individual responses to the languages of ceramics and calligraphy. Both inherited rich artistic lineages through their apprenticeships under influential masters - Kuroda under renowned ceramicist Tatsuzo Shimaoka and Inada under pioneering avant-garde calligrapher Shiryu Morita. Yet neither artist treats tradition as fixed conventions. Instead, they approach their respective mediums as dynamic frameworks through which new possibilities of form are explored and reinterpreted.
 

Location: Fitzrovia Chapel, 2 Pearson Square, W1T 3BF
Nearest Station: Warren Street, via Victoria line
Date: 1 — 31 October 2026