the MA walls / TOKYO, JAPAN
The art of
leaving space
Ma (間) — the beauty of space, on your walls.
Art rooted in Japanese aesthetics, designed in Tokyo, made just for you.
Read our story“A space should hold presence,
not just things.”
RYUSHI NAGATA / FOUNDER
01 / FROM THE FOUNDER
A quieter kind
of wall art.
Hi, I'm Ryushi Nagata, the founder of the MA walls.
We don't keep a TV at home. It started as a digital detox, and over time it simply became the way we live. Then we hung art on our walls, and the house felt different. Calmer. Better to live in. I wanted to bring that feeling to other people's homes.
I grew up in Tokyo, but my summers belonged to Nagasaki. Every year I spent about a month at my grandfather's house. He was a carpenter and built that house himself. I still remember the shadows of trees moving across the shoji screens in the wind. He used the tools his master had handed down to him for his whole life, sharpening and repairing them himself. He fixed what broke, and gave old things a new use.
I didn't think much about any of this until university, when I spent half a year in the UK and traveled through Europe, including Scandinavia. Seeing Japan from the outside, I started to understand how much those quiet things meant to me.
Years later, looking for art for our own walls, I kept finding "Japanese" prints that weren't Japanese at all. Kanji that made no sense. Landscapes that could be anywhere. It bothered me more than I expected. I'm Japanese, and I thought: this is something I can actually do right.
02 / OUR APPROACH
Chosen in Japan.
Made for your space.
Every collection starts from something I've seen or felt myself: light on a shoji screen, moss on old temple stones, the quiet of grinding ink. For every piece in the shop, at least ten don't make it. My test is simple. Would I hang it in my own home? Can I picture the room it belongs in, and does it make that room better to live in?
I show new pieces to our kids. If they stop to look, or ask to put one up at home, that tells me something. We print on museum-quality matte paper sourced from Japan, chosen for its depth and restraint.
Why Japandi?
Japandi has become a popular word. For us, it's a real conversation between two cultures that share a deep love of simplicity, nature, and quiet beauty. Japanese ma and Scandinavian hygge are different words for a similar feeling: that a space should hold presence, not just things.
03 / CHOOSING YOUR ART
Care in
the details.
Growing up in Japan shaped my appreciation for small, thoughtful details. At the MA walls, I bring that same care to the experience of choosing art for your home.
Our size guide lets you compare artwork sizes against different bed widths, explore frame colours, and change the wall colour in the preview. These small choices help you picture the balance between a piece and the space around it, and take your time finding what feels right.
For posters and framed prints, you can also explore each piece in 3D and use AR to imagine it on your own wall. Together, these views give you more room to consider how the art and the empty space around it might feel at home.
04 / MADE TO ORDER
Made for you,
not for shelves.
Every print is made to order. No overproduction, no excess inventory, no waste. When you place an order, your piece is created just for you — printed on museum-quality materials and shipped directly to your door. To get your art to you as quickly as possible, your order is produced at our trusted print partner's facility closest to your address. We offer two formats — poster and framed prints — each chosen to complement the art and your space.
BEHIND the MA walls
Our office is in Tokyo. I live with my family in Chigasaki, a seaside town south of the city, where some mornings start in the ocean and weekends often end at a campsite.
A customer recently wrote to us: "The prints are gorgeous." Reading words like that is the best part of this work. We want to bring homes around the world something only we can make.
the MA walls is operated by ULTRO Inc., based in Tokyo, Japan. If you would like to talk about a piece, a space, or the ideas behind the work, get in touch through our Contact page. There's a real person on the other side.
— Ryushi Nagata, Founder