In things that decay, he sees not an ending, but a beginning.
Shohei Ono’s works are born from that quiet conviction.

Born in 1985 in Aichi Prefecture,
he currently continues his ceramic practice deep in the mountains of Kami City, Kochi, facing clay, fire, and time.

He entered the path of ceramics in his late twenties and studied under Ryoji Koie. In 2014, he deepened his learning under his father, ceramic artist Teppei Ono, before becoming independent.
Since then, Ono’s practice has become an inquiry into the very act of “making” a vessel.
He goes into the mountains to gather raw clay, burns wood, and makes glaze from its ash. Fired at high temperatures, again and again.
The forms that emerge stand at the boundary between chance and necessity, carrying a landscape no one else could ever arrive at.
This is also why his work is often described as “something only he can make.”

The unmistakable weight you feel when you take it in your hands.
Contours that are generous, yet charged with a certain taut tension.
In its presence, you sense not only the work’s completeness as an object, but also a quiet reflection of Ono himself—his interiority, his atmosphere.
While it surpasses the role of an everyday vessel and shifts the very center of gravity of a space, it also gently conveys the maker’s character.
We have watched, from close range, the moment when the maker’s presence naturally rises within the work.

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The Rust Tower is a central work within the series titled Rusting Forms.
Its theme is “the beauty held by things as they decay.”

To decay is not to be lost.
Just as the traces of time appear on our skin as we grow older,
objects, too, acquire new beauty through the process of change.
The Rust Tower expresses not a finished state, but a beauty still in the midst of becoming.
Within the unceasing flow of time, it presents a form of value that continues to renew itself—without end.

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This work is created by applying iron- and copper-based glazes, then oxidizing the surface through a specialized firing process.
Unlike conventional “rust glazes,” this is an original technique that transforms ceramic material to appear almost like metal.
Red rust and verdigris are cultivated over time; at the precise moment they reach their most beautiful coloration, they are sealed in place with a coating.

Yet it is not a complete stop.
Placed outdoors and exposed to wind and rain, the rust sleeping beneath the coating begins to breathe again.
In Japan’s humid rainy season, it deepens into a rich blue; in winter, wrapped in cold and dryness, it shifts into a pale, watery light blue.

Though it is a fired work, it continues to change with time—almost like a living thing.
The Rust Tower quietly unsettles the very notion of what a “completed artwork” is.

Even within the Rusting Forms series, The Rust Tower is an exceptionally rare, large-scale work that has been presented only at a limited number of solo exhibitions.
It can be appreciated as an art object, and though it is ceramic, it may also be used as a stool that can support sitting, or as a side table.

The Rust Tower, through the imagination of its owner, is given new roles and released once more into time.

It may be less an object to possess than a presence to spend time with.

The works introduced in this article can be viewed on the Rurbanism online store.