Masahiko Kuwahara

  • Installation view from "heavenly peach" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2020 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara photo by Kenji Takahashi
  • Installation view from "heavenly peach" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2020 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara photo by Kenji Takahashi
  • Installation view from "heavenly peach" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2020 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara photo by Kenji Takahashi
  • Installation view from "heavenly peach" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2020 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara photo by Kenji Takahashi
  • 遺品 2017 acrylic on canvas 193.3 x 130.2 cm ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Emily 2019 acrylic on canvas 100.3 x 80.5 cm ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Sweet-ex 2019 acrylic on canvas 80.6 x 53.3 cm ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "fantasy land" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2017 ©Masahiko Kuwahara photo by Kenji Takahashi
  • Installation view from "fantasy land" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2017 ©Masahiko Kuwahara photo by Kenji Takahashi
  • Installation view from "fantasy land" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2017 ©Masahiko Kuwahara photo by Kenji Takahashi
  • Installation view from "fantasy land" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2017 ©Masahiko Kuwahara photo by Kenji Takahashi
  • Untitled 2017 acrylic on canvas 33.3 × 24.2 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Untitled 2017 acrylic on canvas 53.0 × 53.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Untitled 2017 acrylic on canvas 100 × 100 cm©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 果て The End 2016 acrylic on canvas 116.7 × 91.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Untitled 2016 acrylic on canvas 18.0 × 14.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Bright Days" 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2015 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Bright Days" 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2015 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Bright Days" 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2015 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Bright Days" 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2015 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 福音 Gospel 2014 acrylic on canvas 145.5 × 145.5 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • めぐみちゃんの世 Megumi’s world 2014 acrylic on canvas 19.2 × 27.4 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 静かな所 the quiet place 2012 acrylic on canvas 116.7 × 91.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Only in Dreams" Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2012 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Only in Dreams" Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2012 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Only in Dreams" Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2012 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Only in Dreams" Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2012 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 商業施設 Shopping Mall 2012 oil on canvas 194.0 × 194.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 夢のなかのハニー Honey in Dreams 2011 oil on canvas 91.0 × 91.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • みずいろ Light Blue 2012 oil on canvas 145.5 × 112.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 午後 Afternoon 2011 oil on canvas 41.0 × 41.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Sweet and Desserts" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2010 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Sweet and Desserts" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2010 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Sweet and Desserts" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2010 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Sweet and Desserts" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2010 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • ＊4 candy box 2009 acrylic on canvas 162.0 × 162.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 貝 shell 2009 acrylic on canvas 33.3 × 24.2 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 夏の日 summer days 2013 acrylic on canvas 145.5 × 145.5 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • princess room 2009 acrylic on canvas 100.0 × 65.2 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • ＊2 Honey White 2008 acrylic on canvas 162.0 × 162.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 窓明かり Light through a window 2008 oil on canvas 130.5 × 97.0 cm ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 窓 2008 acrylic on canvas 18.0 × 18.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 部屋 2008 oil pastel on paper 32.0 × 41.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Candy Box 2008 Resin, clay, shell, flower and etc h.37.0 × w.25.0 × d.25.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Candy Box 2008 Resin-clay, pearl, hair, pearl, flower etc h.50.0 × w.30.0 × d.22.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 光 light 2007 oil on canvas 60.6 × 50.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 神秘 spiritual 2007 oil on canvas 22.0 × 27.3 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • New Town 2005 oil on canvas 33.3 × 33.3 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Bitter Sea 2004 acrylic on paper 134.0 × 101.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Land Development" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2005 ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Land Development" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2005 ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Land Development" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2005 ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Depuration -Dunlin in Yatsu 2005 oil on canvas 116.7 × 91.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Depuration -Institution 2005 oil on canvas 116.7 × 91.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Acrylamid 2002 oil on canvas 100.0 × 80.3 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • VACANT LOT 2001 oil on canvas 112.0 × 145.5 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Life and Pus" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2001 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "Life and Pus" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2001 ©︎Masahiko Kuwahara
  • その後 After That 2000 oil on canvas 45.5 × 65.3 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Dots 2000 acrylic on canvas 91.0 × 116.7 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Room 2000 acrylic on canvas 45.5 × 53.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Installation view from "view" at Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 1999 ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Power Transmission Line 1999 acrlic on canvas 45.5 × 53.2 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 重金属 heavy metal 1999 oil on canvas 97.0 × 130.3 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • 経済価値 Economic Value 1999 acrylic on canvas 27.5 × 22.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • BEACH 1999 acrylic on canvas 218.5 × 304.5 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • The Exchange 1998 oil on canvas 65.2 × 53.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Cornea (artificial world) 1996 oil on paper 60.7 × 72.8 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Clean Meat 1996 oil on canvas 130.3 × 162.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Vinyl Dream (bear) 1995 oil on canvas 24.5 × 33.5 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Vinyl Maria (top) 1995 oil on canvas 24.5 × 33.5 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara
  • Vinyl Maria (bottom) 1995 oil on canvas 41.0 × 32.0 cm ©Masahiko Kuwahara

Born in Tokyo in 1959, and passed away in April 2021.
He held twelve solo exhibitions with Tomio Koyama Gallery: “Abandoned Child” (1997), “View” (1999), “Life and Pus” (2001), “Land Development” (2005), “In the End of Summer” (2007), “Window” (2008), “Sweet and Desserts” (2010), “Only in Dream” (2012), “Bright Days” (2015), “Summer Days” (2019) and “heavenly peach” (2021). He also held two solo exhibitions at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, the United States, in 2001 and 2008.

His major group exhibitions include “TOKYO POP” (Hiratsuka Museum of Art, Kanagawa, 1996), “The Japanese Experience – Inevitable” (Ursula Blickle Stiftung Foundation, Kraichtal, Germany, 2002; traveled to Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria in 2004), “POPjack: Warhol to Murakami” (Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, 2002), “Japan Pop” (Helsinki City Art Museum, Helsinki, 2005), “Portrait Session” (NADiff, Tokyo / Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, 2007) and “Pathos and Small Narratives” (Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea, 2011).

Kuwahara started exhibiting his work in the 1980s. He consistently expressed a sense of absurdity with regard to scenery and humanity being changed by modernization. Inorganic buildings and sceneries created by Japan’s economic prosperity during the 1960s and 70s, dolls and toys that were consumed and abandoned to anonymity, and uncanny creatures living by polluted water, are the primary scenery in which Kuwahara himself grew up. He depicted their sadness in light and humorous ways, assimilated with pale color tones and blurred outlines, suggesting our contemporary feelings of fleeting emptiness, dullness, and loneliness, yet also enabling us to sense a mysterious kind of happiness.

Solo Exhibitions

2022 “Masahiko Kuwahara (1959-2021) ” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2020 “heavenly peach” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2019 “Summer Days” 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2017 “fantasy land” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2015 “Bright Days” 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2012 “Drawings; Hana to Yume” GALLERY ZERO, Osaka, Japan
“Only in Dreams” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2011 GALLERY ZERO, Osaka, Japan
2010 “Sweet and Desserts” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2008 Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, USA
“Window” Tomio Koyama Gallery Kyoto, Japan
2007 “In the End of Summer” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2005 “Land Development” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2004 Galerie 20.21, Essen, Germany
2003 “Animals” TKGY at lammfromm, Tokyo, Japan
2001 Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, USA
“Trim” Galleria Micia, Takamatsu, Kagawa, Japan
“Life and Pus” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2000 “Beautiful Dream” Canvas International Art, Amsterdam, Netherlands
“Blue Sky” Gallery Zero, Osaka, Japan
“Beach” Gallery Koto, Okayama, Japan
1999 “View” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1998 “Rainbow Color” Gallery Zero, Osaka, Japan
1997 “Abandoned Child” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
“Shadeless Beach” Gallery Zero, Osaka, Japan
1996 “Forgive and Forget” Gallery Zero, Osaka, Japan
1995 “Vinyl Dream” AKI-EX Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1990 Tamura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1984 Tamura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Group Exhibitions

2021 “FLOWERS & BIRDS” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2020 “Face” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
“Circulator of the Yoichi Umezu curation exhibition full Freon Tal nude” Nihombashi Mitsukoshi Main Store Main Building 6F Contemporary Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2019 Parplume Gallery, Kanagawa, Japan
2018 “Treasure box of Contemporary Art” Oita Prefectural Art Museum, Japan
2015 “Yuka Kashihara, Hideaki Kawashima, Makiko Kudo, Toru Kuwakubo, Masahiko Kuwahara, Atsushi Fukui” 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2014 “Group exhibition by Tomio Koyama Gallery” TOLOT/heuristic SHINONOME, Tokyo, Japan
2013 “Cho-Kyoto 2013, Contemporary Art @Today's Machiya in Kyoto” Today's Machiya in Kyoto, Model House Exhibition Place KYOMO, Kyoto, Japan
2012 “Masahiko Kuwahara, Yoshitomo Nara, Hiroshi Sugito” Tomio Koyama Gallery Singapore, Singapore
2011 “Temporary Exhibition: Art in an Office” Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan
“Happy Mind - my view” MISAKO ＆ ROSEN, Tokyo, Japan
“Pathos and Small Narratives” Gana Art Center, Seoul, Korea
2008 Hakodate Museum of Art, Hokkaido, Japan
2007 “MIXED SIGNALS” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY, USA
“Portrait Session” NADiff, Tokyo/ Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan
“magical museum tour” Tokyo Wonder Site, Hongo, Tokyo, Japan
“Summer Show” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2006 “a magical art life” Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan
“10th Anniversary” Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2005 “Japan Pop” Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland
2004 “The Japanese Experience -Inevitable” Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria
“The Secret Forest of Princess Knight” M.Y.Art Prospects, New York, NY, USA
2003 “Japan Rising” Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Lake Worth, FL, USA
2002 “Emotional Site” Shokuryo Building -Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
“The Japanese Experience -Inevitable” Ursula Blickle Stiftung, Kraichtal, Germany
“POPjack: Warhol to Murakami” Museum of Contemporay Art, Denver, CO, USA
2001 “Playground” Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, Portugal
2000 “Drawn From Life” Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY, USA
“Yume no Ato” Haus am Waldsee, Berlin/ Staati Kunsthalle Barden-Barden, Germany
“Landscape My Ass” Vedanta Gallery, Chicago, IL, USA
1999 “Sampling” Ronald Feldman Fine Art, New York, NY, USA
“Soap” Gallery Zero, Osaka, Japan
Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
1996 “Love Song” Gallery Zero, Osaka, Japan
“TOKYO POP” Hiratsuka Museum of Art, Kanagawa, Japan
1993 Maki-Tamura Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
1991 Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Gallery Sarge, Tokyo, Japan
1983 Gallery Parergon, Tokyo, Japan

Public Collections

Flowerman Collection
Olbricht Collection
Toyota Art Collection

Books

“The Japanese Experience: Inevitable”
Takashi Murakami, Kaikai Kiki, Aya Takano, Masahiko Kuwahara, Yoshitomo Nara, Hiroshi Sugito, Shintaro Miyake, Jun Hasegawa / editor: Margrit Brehm / Hatje Cantz 2003