Sharlen Nozawa makes tableware in Paris, informed by the ceramics she grew up around in Hawaii. Her mother's collection entered the household gradually: pieces brought from Japan after emigration, then others collected in Hawaii, each one extending the table's vocabulary without turning heritage into display.

Her work also draws from the traditional Korean ceramics of her grandfather's country, and from the passage of forms and techniques across East Asia. Nozawa is attentive to how ceramic traditions carry histories of colonisation and migration; Japanese ceramics often hold Korean influence, while small petal-like details in some of her cups recall techniques found in Chinese porcelain. Her pieces are often described as Japanese, though she understands them through a wider inheritance, carried through crossings and altered by shared craft.

Nozawa does not sign her work. She speaks of visiting museums and finding older pieces that resemble her own, a likeness she welcomes because it places the vessel inside a longer ceramic conversation. Bowls, cups and dishes are made to join what already exists, adding another inflection to forms that came before her. A mark remains, but not always as a name.