Artist Profile

Shintaro Miyake

Born in 1970 in Tokyo. He completed his B.A. at Tama Art University in 1996, and currently lives and works in Tokyo.
From drawing, painting, sculpture, to “cut-outs” of characters drawn on cardboard or wood, live drawings created while wearing originally-designed costumes, as well as performance, and video, Miyake freely incorporates and combines a wide variety of expressions to create a unique artistic world that is permeated by a rich sense of wit. The diverse and pleasantly humorous nature of his oeuvre has continued to fascinate and attract the attention of viewers internationally. Miyake has held solo exhibitions in numerous locations throughout the world including Italy, Austria, Berlin, and Taiwan
His works are housed in the public collections of Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art (Norway), Kistefos Museet (Norway), Haus der Künstler in Gugging (Austria), The JAPIGOZZI Collection, Rubell Family Collection (USA), and the Takahashi Collection (Japan).

Miyake’s major solo exhibitions include “I Found Myself in the Traveling Carnival” (Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2019), “VIKING AGE” (Gerhardsen Gerner, Berlin, 2013), “CALM CLAM” (GALERIE GABRIEL ROLT, Amsterdam, 2011), “There are TWO TRUTHS!” (Gerhardsen Gerner, Berlin, 2009), “Innocy’s House” (Museum Gugging, Art/ Brut Center Gugging, Klosterneuburg, Austria, 2007), “HATCHOBORI” (Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, 2007), “Beaver no Seikatsu” (Sandra and David Bakalar Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA, 2006), “Minotauro contro Mostro Marino”(Galleria Suzy Shammah, Milan, 2004), “Innocy’s House” (Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna, 2004), “The Fourth Planet Hour” (℅ Atle Gerhardsen, Berlin, 2004) and “SWEET SUMMER” (Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, 2003).

Major group exhibitions include “ROKKO MEETS ART 2014” (Rokko Internatonal Musical Box Museum, Hyogo, Japan, 2014), “neoteny japan: Contemporary Artists after 1990s from Takahashi Collection” (KIRISHIMA OPEN-AIR MUSEUM, Kagoshima, Japan [traveled to Sapporo Art Park, Hokkaido, 2008-09/ The Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, 2009/ Akita Museum of Modern Art, 2009/ Yonago City Museum of Art, Tottori, 2009-10/ The Museum of Art Ehime, Japan, 2010]), “Berlin-Tokyo/ Tokyo-Berlin” (Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 2006), “NAOSHIMA STANDARD” (Former Barber, Naoshima, Kagawa, Japan, 2006), “Officina Asia” (Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Italy [traveled to Galleria Comunale d’Arte, Cesena/ Palazzo del Ridotto e Galleria d’Arte Ex-Pescheria, Cesena/ Palazzo dell’Arengo, Rimini, Italy]), “The Japanese Experience -Inevitable” (Ursula Blickle Stiftung, Kraichtal, Germany [traveled to Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria, 2003], “Emotional Site” (Saga-cho Shokuryo Building, Tokyo, 2002).

Tomoko Nagai

In Tomoko Nagai’s artworks, various animals, children, colorful trees and mushrooms are depicted in a theatrical arrangement against the backdrop of forests and domestic rooms. Loaded with a multitude of motifs, each of Nagai’s paintings embraces a unique sense of spatiality, wherein a dynamism that encapsulates the worlds of fictional narratives intricately overlaps with layers of images. The colorful matière and brushstrokes form a fantastical rhythm as the artist exercises an expression akin to composing a musical piece. The viewer perceives this melody while standing face-to-face with each painting. This evokes a sense of being inside the painting, as the viewer’s own memories and experiences – nostalgic sensations, recollections and dreams from childhood – connect with the worldview represented in each artwork.

Tomoko Nagai was born in Aichi Prefecture in 1982. She graduated from Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music in 2006, majoring in Oil Painting. Nagai currently lives and works in Tokyo. Nagai held a solo exhibition at Project N, Tokyo Opera City in 2008, followed by a number of solo presentations in Kyoto, Kagoshima, Hong Kong and Singapore. She exhibited at “VOCA 2010” (the Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, 2010) and “Future Pass – From Asia to the World”, part of the 54th Venice Biennale (Palazzo Mangilli-Valmarana, Venice, 2011), and has participated in international group exhibitions in Seoul (Gana Art Center, 2011), Grenoble (Le Magasin – Centre National d’Art Contemporain) and Berlin (me Collectors Room Berlin, 2010). She has also taken a part in a project funded by the Singapore Red Cross, in which she painted an entire swimming pool at Toyama nursery school, located in the tsunami-stricken area of Shichigahama town, Miyagi (designed by Takahashi Ippei Office, completed in 2013). Nagai has engaged with broad audiences outside of museums and art galleries, providing title designs and artworks for television programmes on NHK Educational, as well as creating book covers for a range of publications. In 2017, she published her first monograph “Thousands of Finches”. Nagai’s artworks have been included in public collections both in Japan and internationally, notably the Takahashi Collection (Japan), the Olbricht Collection (Germany), the Zabludowicz Collection (UK) and The JAPIGOZZI Collection (US / Switzerland).

Rieko Otake

Rieko Otake’s woodcarvings express such motifs as young girls, birds and deer and even while her work looks somewhat delicate and unstable at times, one senses a unique strength in its universal presence replete with grace. Otake consistently uses the wood of camphor, cypress, and katsura trees, working within a method of adding finishing touches to a foundation of non-colored wood. Approaching closer the works, one becomes aware of an unexpected vigor to the chisel marks. She is affected by the importance of the rhythm of the repeated carving motions: a sincere process of exchange as if the tree and one’s breathing might become joined together, so that the artwork appears as story replete with lyricism.

Rieko Otake was born in 1978 in Kanagawa Prefecture. In 2004 she graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts’ Graduate School of Fine Arts, majoring in sculpture, and completed her PhD in 2007. Her works have been collected in the Takahashi and JAPIGOZZI Collections. As well as exhibiting in the show “As Long As Rainbow Lasts” (Soka Art Center, Taipei, 2011), she has also held four solo exhibitions at Tomio Koyama Gallery.

Keisuke Yamamoto

Keisuke Yamamoto was born in 1979 in Tokyo. After graduating from the department of Sculpture of Tokyo Zokei University in 2001 he stayed at the university as a research student until 2003. In 2018 he graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts’ Graduate School of Fine Arts, majoring in sculpture. He currently lives and works in Kanagawa. This show at Tomio Koyama Gallery is his sixth solo exhibition, and his major group exhibitions include “VOCA 2008” (2008, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo), “Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art” (2009, Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, traveled to several international museums), “Twist and Shout: Contemporary Art from Japan” (2009, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre), and “Nostalgia and Fantasy: Imagination and Its Origins in Contemporary Art” (2014, National Museum of Art, Osaka). His work is collected by the National Museum of Art, Osaka and international private collections.

Naoki Koide

Naoki Koide was born in Aichi prefecture in 1968. He graduated from Tokyo Zokei University in 1992. He currently lives and works in Chiba. Since the group exhibition “Magic Room” (curated by Satoshi Okada) in 2003, the solo exhibitions “A Couple in the Bathroom” (2004), “Marriage” (2006), and “In These Days” (2008), “Maternity Leave” (2011), this marks the artist’s fifth solo exhibition with Tomio Koyama Gallery. His other major exhibitions include “Cafe in Mito” (2004, Art Tower Mito, Tochigi), “Magical Art Life” (2006, Tokyo Wonder Site, Shibuya), “Fiction@Love” (2006, MOCA Shanghai), “neoneo Part1[BOY]” (2009, Takahashi Collection Hibiya, Tokyo), “Echigo-Tumari Art Trienial” (2009, Nigata) and “Paul Clay” (2011, Salon 94 Bowery, New York).