Opening reception
5月30日(土) 17:00〜19:00
*作家が在廊いたします。

白簱花呼 x 佐原しおり トークイベント

5月30日(土) 15:00-16:30
*詳細はこちらをご覧ください。

 古典美術や現代視覚文化における女性の表象に自己の容貌を重ね合わせ、絵画空間上でのイメージの再構築を試みる白簱花呼（2002年大阪府生まれ）。AI技術によって加工され、他者の欲望の対象としてネット空間で消費され続けるアイドル像を目にしたことを契機に、女性の表象を「見られる」存在から「見せる」主体へと転換する白簱の探究がはじまりました。既存のイメージの内部に自身が潜り込み、あるいは自己に既存の女性像を重ねて描くという彼女の実践は、「彼女達」が浴び続ける欲望の眼差しを自身に一部引き受けるという態度から始まった方法論です。白簱はこのようなイメージの再構築を意図したアプローチを、古代の呪術的身振り「アナ・スロマイ」[1]的意味合いを持つ、女性像の拡張の試みと位置付けています。

美術における女性の表象は、単なる「共同体の社会的現実や心性の反映」ではなく、「様々な意図や目的、そして戦略を持った作者群によって創造されたものである」と、若桑みどりは指摘します。[1]このようなイメージの恣意性をめぐる感性と、自身もまた女性であることによって感受する世界との応答は、白簱を現在の探究へと向かわせる姿勢を育み、セクシャリティや身体性の問題を考察するベクトルもまた必然的に立ち上がりました。

「私 呼吸し　さめざめないてみる」という本展のタイトルには、作家の制作と私生活の変化の両方を物語る意味合いがあります。京都府から滋賀県に活動の拠点を移し、リビングとアトリエが隣接する暮らしの中で、日常的に接する人の数が減り、ジェンダーを意識する機会も格段に減ったという現在の環境は、白簱に少なからぬ影響をもたらしたようです。それによって、「呼吸」ができるという開放感の一方で、「さめざめなく」という言葉には、本来私的であるはずの泣く行為に、見られていることを期待する身振りのような側面が感じられ、作家はさらにそこに「（〜して）みる」という補助動詞を付け加えることで、自身を演出する演技的な行為への眼差しを込めています。展示作品には「泣く」という行為に結びつく表情はむしろなく、タイトルと画中の人物の感情表現のズレも含めて鑑賞者の考察を促します。

鏡を用いた表情模倣によって、自身の顔と参照先のイメージを往来する制作過程に加え、移住した頃から「写真」を使い始めた白簱は、複数の表象を一人の身体に重ね合わせる方法も同時期に模索しはじめました。自分ではない誰かになりきること、自分の顔を変容させることに躊躇を持たないと言い切る作家は、表情操作を通じて鑑賞者に描いた像の読解を促す自身の態度を、他者の視線を前提に自分の姿を加工・変容することに抵抗のない「自撮り文化」に特有の操作性の感覚に重ねて解釈しています。

表象のシステムが、権力関係と結びつきながら世界の解釈を形づくってきたとするならば、既存の女性像に自身を潜ませ、それを補強・再構築しながら社会へ提示する白簱の試みには、そうした構造の枠組みそのものへと介入していくような態度もまた感じられます。Yutaka Kikutake Galleryにおける白簱花呼の初の個展となる本展では、三人の女性像が並ぶ横長のキャンバス、複数の表象を一人の人物像に重ねた新たなアプローチや、より内臓的な描写に挑んだ「花」のシリーズを含む新作群によって、作家の現在地を展覧します。

[1] 古代エジプトなどで、女性が衣をたくし上げ性器を露わにする行為の呼び名。魔除けや豊穣の祈りとも関連づけられる。

[1] 若桑みどり『表象としての女性像　ジェンダー史から見た家父長制における女性表象』筑摩書房、1997年、p8。

白簱花呼

2002年大阪府生まれ。現在は滋賀を拠点に活動。古代の呪術的身振り「アナ・スロマイ」（女性が衣をたくし上げ性器を露わにする）を、一方的な眼差しの構造に対抗する行為として再解釈し、顔・身体・花といったモチーフを通じた絵画空間でのイメージの再構築を試みる。セクシャリティや身体性をめぐる問題を軸に、古典美術や現代視覚文化における女性像に自己の容貌を重ね合わせることで、受動的、かつ無害とされてきた存在を、「見られる」ものから「見せつける」主体へと転換する可能性を探る。

近年の主な展覧会に、「Re; Archive」(Mikke Gallery、2025年)、「もっとパッションを」(Yutaka Kikutake Gallery、2025年)、「Skeptically Curious：価値の変成をめぐる複数の試み」（みずほ銀行京都支店、2025年）、「The CAPS – Contemporary Art Practice展」（高島屋大阪店、2025年）、「鬼頭健吾推薦作家展『Floor』」（西武百貨店渋谷支店オルタナティブスペース、東京、2024年）、「Pleiades Edition1」（ギャラリーa、京都、2023年）など。2026年にARTISTS' FAIR KYOTO マイナビ ART AWARD 優秀賞、2025年度京都芸術大学 大学院修了展 大学院賞、2023年度京都芸術大学卒業展優秀賞、第44回国際滝冨士美術賞優秀賞を受賞。

Nerhol's practice of carving into bundles of sequential photographs has matured over the years, expanding into a wider range of fields and delving deeper into expressive possibilities. What began as an initial interest in figurative subject matter has expanded to address everything from naturalized plants to the serialized photographs of Eadweard Muybridge. Recently, Nerhol have expanded into a new material approach where tens of thousands of still images from films are piled one on top of another and exhibited as a cross-section. For this exhibition, Nerhol address the body as the central theme. Tens of thousands of still images are first extracted from videos of professional models before being cut into strips by hand and piled into a single stack. This series invites the viewer into a microscopic time axis, an invisible threshold, a gap in existence that is imperceptible to the naked eye. This work can be described as a confrontation with life’s inhered multi-layered nature, an attempt to drive a wedge into cross-sections of the physical world and capture them from a different perspective. This work is presented alongside a horizontal stack of still images of the same video subject that has been carved into following their usual creative approach. Early versions of this series featured hundreds of layered photographs, but the number of images in this work has been drastically reduced. The contrasting composition—tens of thousands of layers stacked vertically juxtaposed with only a small number of layers that nevertheless are carved from overlapping perspectives of the same human figure—vividly demonstrates the multi-layered nature of Nerhol’s investigations while simultaneously encompassing reflections on time and space.

Time and space, visible and invisible, macro and micro—just as Nerhol have traversed the space between photography and sculpture, so too have they continued to develop and enrich their practice by traversing dimensions and concepts. Through this show’s thematic focus on the body, these investigations open up deeper connections with the viewer and bring an awareness of the possibilities of a rich, multi-layered reality. Petrified wood reflects the figure of the viewer through a mirror-like surface of tin, linking hundreds of years of history with the present. One could argue that the “bodily” theme and practice of this work has developed into something internalized by each viewer, thus connecting those same viewers more deeply to the work. The results of this innovative approach were recognized in 2024 by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology with the Award for Fine Arts. Through constant reflection and practice, the two artists seek ever-new frontiers.

Nerhol

Nerhol are a Tokyo-based artist duo formed in 2007 by Ryuta Iida and Yoshihisa Tanaka. Beginning with explorations into defamiliarizing books, the characters within them, and established forms of images existing in the world, in 2011 they attracted considerable attention with a three-dimensional portrait created by carving into a stack of more than two hundred completely different portraits taken over the span of several minutes. Their practice attempts to unravel the multilayered existence inherent in organic matter that is frequently overlooked in everyday life.

Recent major exhibitions include Nerhol: Seeding and Crows—Misreading Righteousness (Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, 2025), Household Vestiges (Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo, 2025), Nerhol: Turning the leaves of horizons (Chiba City Museum of Art, 2024), Tenjin Mume Nusa (Dazaifu Tenmangu, Fukuoka, 2024), Beyond the Wall (Museo Leonora Carrington, San Luís Potosí, Mexico, 2024), Affect (Dai-ichi Life Gallery and M5 Gallery, Tokyo, 2023), critical plane (Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, Tokyo, 2021), Interview, Portrait, House and Room (Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art, South Korea, 2017), and Promenade (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, 2016).

Major collections include Foam Museum (Amsterdam), Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art (South Korea), Fundación AMMA (Mexico), Dazaifu Tenmangu (Fukuoka), Chiba City Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, and Tokyo Photographic Art Museum.

Ryuta Iida was born in 1981 in Shizuoka prefecture. In 2004 he graduated from the Sculpture Course in the Department of Fine Arts at Nihon University College of Art, and in 2014 received his Master’s degree in Intermedia Art from Tokyo University of the Arts. He is currently based in Tokyo.

Yoshihisa Takana was born in Shizuoka prefecture in 1980. After graduating in 2004 from the Scenography, Display and Fashion Design Department in the College of Art and Design at Musashino University, Tanaka received his Master’s degree from the Graduate School of Media and Governance at Keio University.

Countless ceramic lemons are arranged throughout the exhibition space.At the center stands a lemon tree set in a bronze pot. For the artist, the lemon is a motif layered with multiple meanings. It starts with the concrete experience of loss—living with a lemon tree day by day until it eventually withered—and encompasses the emotional fluctuations depicted in Motojirō Kajii’s novel Lemon, as well as the physical sensations evoked by the fruit’s sourness when tasted. The lemons placed on the floor, sometimes stacked vertically, sometimes forming a haphazard pile, bring to mind the legend of “Sai no Kawara” (a riverbed in the netherworld where the souls of children who die prematurely are sent to as punishment for causing great sorrow to their parents, and are made to pray for salvation by building small stone towers), and the practice of stacking stones in Mount Osore as a memorial prayer for children who died before birth. Saito views beliefs as an accumulation of repeated actions and believes that sacredness may reside within the very structure of human behavior itself.  Watering a tree, eating the fruit that it bears, after which it bears more fruit—this daily cycle can be seen as having ties to a form of belief that arises through repeated gestures. This sensation resonates with the creative process of repeatedly producing the same shape from the same plaster mold of a lemon, and here it is also possible to observe a link to the keyword of “corporeality,” which has been an important perspective within her practice

Saito’s inspiration for creating works based on parts of her own body came from observing the ancient forests of Yakushima. Her experience in Yakushima, which catalyzed her thoughts on the “threshold” between trees and her own body, as well as the time she spent living with a lemon tree, watering it and being nourished by its fruit, enabled her to deepen her insight into her own existence within the cycle of life. In this exhibition, she presents several ceramic works that trace her various body parts, such as the abdomen and buttocks. For this exhibition, Saito intertwined more personal territory with the results of her fieldwork, undertaking a new endeavor of working with bronze and creating multiple ceramic lemon works using a plaster mold. Her practice, which has been grounded in the concept of traversing the boundary between human artifice and nature, is progressing to a new stage of inquiry while reexamining important themes such as rituals and beliefs. We welcome visitors to witness Nanami Saito’s efforts—supported by a philosophy exploring sacred sites where nature and human activity intersect, beliefs and corporeality, and the coexistence of humans and non-humans—as well as the outcomes of her practice.

A couple of years ago, when I moved into my new home in Tokyo, I welcomed a lemon sapling into my life and spent about two years living with it. I spent time enjoying the little things, like eating the fruit and nurturing a ladybug pupae I found in a nearby park, protecting it from aphids. However, last year, as my stays overseas and in the countryside continued, the lemon tree withered away.

That loss was much greater than I had anticipated, and coupled with physical and mental exhaustion and other tragic incidents, I found myself unable to accomplish anything for days on end.

Interweaving these personal experiences with fieldwork conducted in Mount Osore in Aomori prefecture and my research on beliefs and sacred sites, in this exhibition I attempt to reconsider the questions of how we mourn the dead as well as the nature and significance of beliefs and sacred sites.   

The process of making a mold of a lemon and creating lemons out of clay one by one, felt like tracing the time I once spent watering the lemon tree every day. The lemon is both a symbol of this exhibition and is a tangible presence for me. The physical sensation reminiscent of the refreshing aftertaste brought about by the sourness of a lemon, is also one of the elements shaping this work.

Goodbye to all the unpleasant things!

—Nanami Saito

With her own physicality and its relationship to the wider world as her central motif, Mari Katayama (b.1987 in Saitama Prefecture, raised in Gunma Prefecture; currently lives and works in Gunma Prefecture) produces an eclectic oeuvre that encompasses a wide range of fields from intricately crafted handsewn objects to photographic works, video, and art projects. Katayama’s work is autobiographical yet evokes universal empathy, questioning how the “roles” and “frameworks” society imposes upon individuals shape the boundaries between self and other, as well as what constitutes “correctness.” In 2025, Katayama produced commissioned works for the Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK (supported by the V&A Parasol Foundation Women in Photography project). This exhibition, which marks the opening of Yutaka Kikutake Gallery’s new Roppongi space, will be the first opportunity to present the artist’s latest body of work in Japan, including the “tree of life” series newly acquired by the V&A.

“tree of life” is a series of ten photographic works in which Katayama herself appears as the subject within a mirrored space constructed by her in her own studio. Surrounded by handsewn objects, her outline reflected in the mirrored surface appears strikingly ambiguous, making it unclear whether it is a mirror image or a real image. Sky and earth, reality and illusion, inside and outside, self and other—the reflections produced by the mirrors blur all contours, as if the generation of proliferating images is repeated infinitely. This work deeply reflects Katayama’s persistent awareness of the plasticity, reproducibility, and endless renewability of digital images—a concern she has held since the early stages of her career—and is also connected to her often-mentioned desire to connect with the “unowned body.”  The portraits were taken together with her largest hand-stitched objects to date: a three metre entity with multiple limbs and a twenty-metre-long tube called “koilia.” They were all photographed by Katayama herself, consciously exploring the power dynamics inherent in the relationship between photographer and subject. Katayama speaks of her own body in tandem with “publicness” precisely because it is an entity that is always shaped by systems, social contexts, and the gaze of others, and this is not unrelated to the “public” nature of her work. Katayama’s image, photographed and objectified, is even detached from herself, and manifests as a site where social, physical, and emotional realities intersect. Her body, emerging within the infinite reflection of mirrors, questions the boundaries between self and other, while simultaneously embracing its public nature as a cyclically renewed body without an owner.

On the other hand, Katayama’s approach of working with a medium-format camera, capturing time with a single shutter release without employing multiple exposures or Photoshop, can be said to be deeply rooted in the physical and corporeal realm, including the act of sewing with a needle and thread. What she attempts within the mirrored space constructed in “tree of life” is to address the sense of distance in relation to the fictional nature of digital images, as well as to materialize them on a physical and spatial level.

To whom does one’s body belong? Revealing the ambiguous boundaries between things through the multiplying mirror reflections, Katayama’s gaze, cast upon living in the here and now while subjected to roles, labels, and various other designations, is also directed at each viewer who stands before her work. Her image persistently questions the relationship between society and the world, self and other, as well as the connections between the world and the self with its many aspects and roles. However, her figure, distorted and disrupted within infinite reflections, also suggests how things are relative to one another. The images that appear before our eyes resemble tree roots and branches, with flowing rivers reminiscent of blood vessels, all of which evoke the cycle of life.

We welcome visitors to take this opportunity to view Mari Katayama’s new work “tree of life”—an extensive project conceived over a period of five years, and a true milestone in her artistic practice.

The air was cold and crisp

I looked up at the ginkgo trees from below and saw an array of yellow and blue dots

People danced amidst the light and leaves falling in the wind

A story about the world outside being inverted and becoming the inside

A cramped urn

Plants growing wildly on the streets of Ningyocho

Two persimmons I received and a diamond-leaf persimmon that I bought myself

I like gathering the seen and the unseen

Mixing them into my usual daydreams, applying them to mineral pigments

Yutaka Kikutake Gallery Kyobashi is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Yuka Mori from Saturday, January 10th to Saturday, February 21st, 2026. Borin in Shiga Prefecture in 1991 and currently based in Kyoto, Mori employs the pigments and supports of traditional Japanese painting to depict two major themes: people and plants. Her sensitivity to nature and plants cultivated by her childhood environment, combined with a deep interest in corporeality stemming from her experience in physical expression, has crystallized in the form of continuous images in which human body and human body, human body and plants, or even plants themselves merge together. For this exhibition, Mori has produced a group of eight or so new works centered around the “Mesh” series, which feature motifs collected more within the context of everyday life and explores the continuum between humans and plants, as well as the organic yet chaotic, mesh-like forms of plants.

Mori’s contemplation of the boundary between humans and nature has been visualized in her paintings as fluid motifs that can be described as both organic and visceral. The works created for this exhibition, while positioned as an extension of her previous endeavors, originate from perspectives more deeply rooted in the artist’s daily life, such as the changing seasons, plants on the streets that caught her eye, landscapes, or even conversations. The interplay between the “figure” that is depicted and the “ground” that is imagined as the background due to remaining unpainted, or the exploration of fluidity where disrupted order transforms “ground” into “figure” and vice versa, is one of the defining characteristics of the worldview she depicts. The “Mesh” series, with its striking organic forms of plants that expand across the entire painting, is an eloquent testament to her undertakings. Mori has also attempted to depict the circulation between the inside and outside of buildings through windows. For this exhibition she has created new organic forms inspired by an acquaintance’s account of experiencing a sensory reversal between the inside and outside of the body.

Images of a continuum where humans and plants merge, which have often been expressed as single entities, are undergoing a decisive shift from the individual to the collective, from motif to landscape, from tree to forest. As the artist mentions, the exhibition is designed for introspection, capitalizing on the limited lighting conditions of the Kyobashi space. Within this space, viewers themselves are prompted to consider perspectives on the boundaries between inside and outside, on circulation, and even on reversal. We invite viewers to observe these fragments of Mori’s imagination and the record of her new endeavors depicting how body and environment mutually encompass each other, both continuously undergoing fluid transformation.

The series of five paintings depicting airplanes feature lyrics from songs about rivers. From a tributary of the Yangtze River that flows through his hometown of Hubei, to the Sakai River in the Sagamihara region of Kanagawa Prefecture where he once lived, and the Kanda River near his current residence—these rivers frequently depicted in his work evoke separation or suggest circularity, at times serving as ambiguous subjects countering the symbolic, and are entities rich in meaning that have also influenced Yang’s identity. Finding affinity in recent years between his theme of distance and airports as liminal spaces, as well as airplanes that embody the concept of departure, Yang explores the depth of his expression by overlaying such imagery with the motif of rivers which has long been recurring in his work. This series, based on complementary color relationships, employs colors that are furthest apart on the color wheel with their brightness adjusted where necessary, suggesting the artist’s attempt to maintain an ambiguous, gray-tinged realm. Furthermore, the selection of colors using the color solid system following the color wheel, reveals an attitude that strives to eliminate as much as possible the symbolism evoked by color. Where is the airplane flying? The relationship between the lyrics evoking a river and the airplane depicted in the center of the painting is left to the viewer’s imagination.

Yang, who lives surrounded by plants, produced two works on canvas for this exhibition inspired by everyday scenes that caught his eye. In the first, the space formed by the lines of leaves and branches is painted over with black, within which the word “believe” appears afloat. The second work, painted in a nearly identical composition but in brighter hues, features the words “totally believe.” What meaning does the word “believe,” adrift within these cave-like spaces reminiscent of a rabbit hole leading to some other dimension, hold in the post-truth era in which we live? The critical perspective cast upon a world where signification and symbolism, strident claims, and conspiratorial facile hopes are consumed one after another resonates with the sense of unease that the paintings exude. Yang also cites influences from William Blake’s use of color and the compositions of Symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin.

The exhibition’s title, “Take me to the river,” is taken from the lyrics of a song by Al Green, in which the feelings of a singer drowning in love evoke various associations such as baptism and purification. Only God knows whether the river he arrives at will purify him or will make him drown deeper. Yang’s paintings, while pop in style, are characterized by a multi-layered structure that incorporates critical themes of identity, history, and contemporary society. In particular, “sense of distance,” which has consistently defined Yang’s artistic practice, as highlighted in this exhibition, has served as a central theme underlying his entire oeuvre. Yang’s practice, built through persistent questioning and repeated creation, harbors the power to provoke profound questions and evoke resonance in us living in today’s increasingly chaotic world.

Since 2022, Mikame has worked on a series entitled Compositions of Disintegration, a body of work inspired by her experience of an earthquake in her studio which made her aware of the gap between the image depicted on the canvas and the actual space of the real world. This work, which maintains a balance with cubist perspectives, seeks to express a sense of gravity—whether falling downwards or floating upwards—centered on the formal relationship between shape and color. In this way, the work succinctly describes Mikame’s approach in this show of extracting and reconstructing phenomenological elements without relying on specific motifs. One example of this experiment in perceiving gravity through color and composition can be seen in inverse and equilibrium (2025) and the way in which the canvas is divided into nine rectangular sections described with a simple brushstroke. Mikame also repeatedly addresses subject matter such as line or light in her work through Building the Image of Lines (since 2019) and Distance of the Light (since 2017). The consideration of invisible lines that appear in the landscape, or an interest in depth perception and a structural analysis of colors that change depending on the light, remain major thematic concerns in Mikame’s painting practice. According to the artist, the new expressive approach to abstraction for the work in this show prompted unprecedented changes in her use of colors and brushes. The observation of everyday events and palm-sized experimental structures forms the base of a highly phenomenological painting practice. Here, Mikame attempts to transform and sublimate the phenomenological interpretations and reconstructions unfolding across the surfaces of her canvases into a purer visual language through the formal medium of abstraction.

What happens when a three-dimensional world becomes a two-dimensional one? Mikame has carried this question with her since the early days of her artistic career, one that has come to fruition in this sharply refined body of new work that incorporates a perspective of translating between dimensions. At the same time, this show can also be seen as the artist’s attempt to answer the historically significant question of what abstract painting is. Continuing to engage with painting against the backdrop of the rapid development of technology in contemporary society has also brought about significant physical changes in her expressive approach, including in the movement of the brush and the strength of the strokes. The results of these efforts to explore new visual possibilities are on full display at this show. We invite you to experience for yourself the trajectory of Mikame’s ideas as she enters into new territory, and witness this crystallization of her painting practice.

Augustine Paredes was born in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines in 1994. He is currently based in Dubai and Frankfurt where his evolving artistic practice explores diasporic perspectives across a range of material approaches including photography, painting, installation, and poetry. Paredes’s work often features traditional materials from the Philippines. Highlighting this exhibition are Devotions (2025), a work made with a material woven from the fibers of pineapple leaves (a fruit that the Spanish introduced to the Philippines in the 15th century) called piña fabric, and In an embrace (2025), a two-dimensional work composed of layers of fabrics and adornments sourced from the Philippines. Piña fabric—an essential part of Paredes’s practice—is an ambiguous material that weaves indigenous traditions with memories of the Spanish colonial era, and, according to the artist, symbolizes tenderness that comes from violence. Thank you, Sorry (2023) is a piece from a series that hints at feelings of regret and remorse through the juxtaposition of immigrants constantly mired in resistance to power and domination alongside the figure of Icarus who famously disobeyed his father and flew too close to the sun.

Through meticulous research, Erika Kobayashi has been collecting invisible subject matter and unspoken memories and emotions while developing various means of expression ranging from painting to writing. Dollar (2024), one of Kobayashi’s works in her ongoing exploration of nuclear power and radiation that began before the Great East Japan Earthquake, evokes a half-century of nuclear history spanning uranium mining, Marie Curie’s discovery of radiation, and the first nuclear bomb test in the United States. Linking the dollar, said to have originated from a currency called Joachimsthaler minted in a city in the region of Bohemia, with uraninite ore discovered in the same location enables this work to provoke a visceral human desire for the suspiciously beautiful radioactive material that glows florescent green under ultraviolet light. Also on display are two-dimensional works that describe the route the Olympic torch took to the 1936 Berlin Olympics under the Nazi regime, the planned route for the 1940 Tokyo Olympic torch relay, and the route Nazi Germany attempted to use to ship uranium from Joachmisthal to Japan in 1945.

Futoshi Miyagi is another artist who utilizes disparate material approaches, including photography, video, text, and installation, to express subtle emotional fluctuations in the forgotten corners of history. This exhibition will feature two pieces inspired by Miyagi’s ongoing American Boyfriend work, a project central to his practice that has developed out of references to various sources of literature, film and music. The title of both pieces, Banner, is also a motif frequently found in Miyagi’s work. Embroidery is a key feature of both the cloth draped over the lampshade with Beethoven’s performance instructions for his Piano Sonata no. 31 “Klagender Gesang,” as well as the wall-hanging piece featuring lyrics from the Okianawan folk song “Nishinjo-bushi” translated into English by Miyagi himself. “We must retrace our history and seek out the quiet voices that have been buried,” he says. Amidst the struggle against ongoing social and political oppression in Okinawa, one can perhaps find modest hope in Miyagi’s work.

Immigrants, minorities, untold feelings and memories—the works of the three artists in this exhibition leverage rich poetic sentiment as they engage with the personal perspectives of those who have been socially ostracized and marginalized to the corners of history. These stories woven by each artist’s unique sensibilities also seem to evince a desire for recovery and reconstruction in the face of disconnection. In today’s world of extreme contradiction and confusion, we invite you to experience the ways in which these three artists tackle the difficult questions of our time. This will also be the first exhibition in Japan for Augustine Paredes.

Augustine Paredes (b. 1994, Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines) is a multi-disciplinary artist questioning what it means to desire in the light of migration, identity, and longing. His expanded photographic practice revolves and evolves in questioning the postcolonial identity of a Filipino in diaspora through different appropriation of artistic mediums, traditional materials, queer gaze, and historical narratives. Augustine works with image-making via photography, painting, poetry, performance, and installation. He lives and works between Frankfurt and Dubai. His work has been exhibited at institutions and galleries such as Paulina Caspari, (Munich, DE, 2025); Jameel Arts Centre, (Dubai, UAE, 2024); Leaks at Foundry, (Dubai, UAE, 2023); Fffriedrich, (Frankfurt am Main, DE, 2023); Gulf Photo Plus, (Dubai, UAE, 2022); and Today x Future, (Quezon City, PH, 2016). He participated in group exhibitions internationally, most notably at Museum Angewandte Kunst, (Frankfurt, DE, 2024), (Delfina Foundation, UK, 2023), Tarzeer Pictures, (Manila, PH, 2023), Gravity Art Space, (Manila, PH, 2023), (Gulf Photo Plus, UAE, 2023), (Goethe Institut, Dubai, UAE, 2021), Middle East Institute (Washington, US, 2021), among others.

Augustine authored art and poetry books entitled Slow Disco (2024), The Bitter Taste of Sweetness (2022), Happy to be here to be happy (2022), Long Night Stands With Lonely, Lonely Boys (2021) and Conversations at the end of the universe (2020).

He is also a co-founder of Sa Tahanan Collective along with curator Anna Bernice delos Reyes.

Augustine has currently been shortlisted for the Vordemberge-Gildewart Scholarship with a forthcoming exhibition in Museum Wiesbaden.

Erika Kobayashi (b. 1978, Tokyo) is based in Tokyo. Her work is inspired by invisible subject matter, time and history, family and memory, and traces of place. In addition to developing expressive approaches through the use of novels, comics, drawing, photography, film and installation, recently Kobayashi’s creative practiced has engaged with the history of nuclear power and radiation, a topic she has been researching since before the Great East Japan Earthquake. Her literary work, Girls, Making Paper Balloon Bombs (Bungeishunju 2024), captures through meticulous research the previously unheard voices of women during the war. Kobayashi won the 78th Mainichi Publishing Culture Award in the category of literature and art for this book, and has received high praise for her writing. Her painting Cherry blossoms 1938 (2025) which is based on Girls, Making Paper Balloon Bombs was part of 14^th Berlin Biennale.

Futoshi Miyagi (b. 1981, Okinawa) is currently based in Tokyo. Centered on a dialogue with his own identity as a sexual minority, Miyagi makes use of a diverse range of material approaches including photography, video, objects, text, printed material, and installation to convey the subtle emotions and feelings that have been overlooked throughout history. The American Boyfriend project, which has evolved from blogs, letters, and other personal communication to video and installation, is a fundamental part of Miyagi’s artistic practice. Among his many talents, Miyagi is involved in operating the first art book store in Utrecht, and also serves as the co-director for the artist collective XYZ collective.

In his exploration into the relationship between ceramics and light, Niisato has developed his practice by moving back and forth between craft and a pursuit of freer forms. The unique appeal of Niisato’s work can be seen in his attempt to incorporate the unavoidable cracks and imperfections of the firing process, his adoption of exhibition formats where the work hangs from the ceiling, and in the extraordinarily delicate perforation technique found in his Luminescent Vessels series, in short, an aesthetic approach that seeks balance between refinement and incompleteness. In addition to new pieces made specifically for this exhibition, Niisato has taken on the challenge of creating compositions based on colors produced through adjustments in glaze and clay formulas. The result is a body of work that marks a new frontier for Niisato, a conception of still life compositions created through the medium of ceramics. It is informed by two perspectives: one rooted in the world of traditional ceramics, the other seeking the possibilities found in contemporary, unrestricted modes of expression. Given this focus, it’s no wonder that Morandi, an Italian painter active in the 20th century, was mentioned in conversations between Niisato and Osa for this show.

Similarly, Osa’s paintings can be characterized by their investigation into abstract expression through discreet fields of color. This exhibition features three paintings entitled Empty Landscape, each with the subtitle of Morning, Noon, or Night. The artist creates these paintings through a series of routine actions: masking off a divided canvas surface, and then applying paint within the exposed frame. Repeated application and removal of the tape affects its adhesion, resulting in areas where the paint arbitrarily bleeds and spills over into the adjacent frame and imparts a subtle sense of movement to the geometric composition of the painting. The regularity at the heart of Osa’s practice, and the harmony between arbitrariness and chance that emerges on the surface of his canvases, surely plays a role in his affinity and respect for Morandi’s still lifes. Light is a defining characteristic of the different times of day referenced in Osa’s work, and it is also a thematic focus of Niisato’s Luminescent Vessels series. In this sense, color and light are keywords to understanding the resonance and response that occurs between Niisato’s compositions and Osa’s three color field paintings that express different times in a single day.

This exhibition marks the first collaboration between Akio Niisato and Seiichiro Osa, an intersection of ceramics and painting, two seemingly disparate fields, that sheds light on unexpected points of similarity and consideration. Viewers will find that the compositions of color and light presented in these heterogenous mediums seem to resonate in the exhibition space and imbue it with a sense of tranquil dynamism. Through a constant pursuit of new material approaches, Niisato and Osa continue to explore the depths of expression in their respective practices. We invite you to come and experience this compelling interplay for yourself.

To commemorate our 10th anniversary, we will be holding a special summer group exhibition entitled More Passion! at our gallery spaces in both Roppongi and Kyobashi. Concurrent to this exhibition, we will also be publishing a zine entitled Ten Years made in collaboration with our artists. The “ten years” that have brought us all together have been filled not just with artwork, but also philosophy, science, and the rhythms of our daily lives. This 疾駆/chic publication serves as a testament to the ways in which we have endeavored to connect art with the everyday.

For ten years, no, even longer, we have been in the company of a diverse group of compelling artists and artwork. At times, we have experienced a kind of uncertainty, wondering if perhaps we need to bring more passion to our own work. After numerous false starts and a sense that our emotional investment might somehow be lacking, we finally feel able to declare: “More passion!”

Art is something on which human beings can stake their true selves. This is a universal quality that applies to everyone. Our enduring passion and unwavering belief in this quality is something we intend to draw upon to carry out our objectives going forward. Universality does not imply that things always stay the same. Rather, we believe that it represents a constant source of refreshing energy capable of surprising and invigorating those who encounter it. Yutaka Kikutake Gallery is publishing this zine and holding this exhibition not as a monument to ten years of history, but rather as a testament to the invigorating days that have filled our lives over these past ten years.

We will be holding a 10th anniversary summer festival at our Roppongi space on the evening of Saturday, August 2nd. We looking forward to seeing you all there.

■疾駆/chic ZINE vol.2 Ten Years publication information

Publisher: Yutaka Kikutake Gallery Books

Date: August 2, 2025

Price: JPY 1,500. (tax excl.)

Contributors: Yang Bo, Norimichi Hirakawa, Takashi Kunitani, Tomoya Matsuzaki, Reina Mikame, Yuko Mohri, Ryuta Iida, Akio Niisato, Seiichiro Osa, Hiraku Suzuki, Kouichi Tabata, Erika Kobayashi, Yutaka Kikutake

Cover: Yoshitomo Nara

Art Direction: Yoshihisa Tanaka

Design: Minori Nishikura

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■More Passion! Summer Group Exhibition participating artists

Hirofumi Isoya, Seiichiro Osa, Erika Kobayashi, Nanami Saito, Kako Shirahata, Kunie Sugiura, Hiraku Suzuki, Kouichi Tabata, Akio Niisato, Nerhol, Norimichi Hirakawa, Reina Mikame, Futoshi Miyagi, Yuko Mohri, Yuka Mori, Trevor Yeung, Yang Bo