Masatada Funo was born in Seattle, Washington to parents of Japanese descent. He is a long-time resident of Vancouver, British Columbia. A self-taught potter, Mas has been working with clay for 45 years. His distinctive boxes and sculptures are collected by admirers in Canada, the United States, Europe and Japan.
Tea ceremony masters in Japan have long favoured raku pottery, characterized by its earthy aesthetic appearance and porosity from being fired at a relatively low temperature. Mas Funo has created his own raku pottery, which shares only a low firing temperature with its Japanese and Korean ancestors. Nature as well as human symbols of nature inspire the shapes, lines and textures of his sculptures. His work is influenced by mistakes, accidents, the rapid chemical changes which happen seconds after the pieces are taken red-hot from the kiln – all those occurrences which lie at the edge of the artist’s control.
