Artist Profile

Yuka Kashihara

Yuka Kashihara uses oil paint applied in a thinly diffuse manner similar to that of Japanese nihonga painting, and by applying it in numerous layers she is able to create a unique depth of color. Within the world of her artworks, scenes from both reality and the spaces of the internal imagination are gently interwoven. Against this backdrop, having left Japan and moved to Germany where she continued developing her practice, Kashihara acquired an interest in the ‘distance’ between the internal and the external. This included the physical distance between Japan and Germany; and further, the distance herself as a Japanese person and herself while in Germany. This becomes expressed symbolically as an introspective speculation in the forms of the motifs of caves, holes, mountains and lakes which she repeatedly takes up within her work, and through this process of sublimation it is as though the original energies which lie dormant within the great Earth have become awakened.

Yuka Kashihara was born in 1980 in Hiroshima Prefecture. In 2006 she graduated from the Japanese Painting Department of Musashino Art University. In the same year she moved to Germany, and in 2013 she acquired a Diploma from the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. In 2015, she was named a Meisterschüler (Masters graduate) of the same academy, studying under Professor Annette Schröter. In 2008 she exhibited at the Bauhuas Dessau Foundation in Shakkei (“borrowed scenery”), a solo show curated by research scholar Torsten Blume of the same Foundation, and in 2012 she exhibited in VOCA, Tokyo, where she received both the Honourable Mention Award and the Ohara Museum of Art Award.

1980　Born in Hiroshima, Japan
2006　B.F.A in Japanese Painting, Musashino Art University, Tokyo
2012　Stayed in Germany under POLA Art Foundation Grants Program
2013　Completed Diploma in Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, Germany
    A part-time lecturer of Musashino Art University, Department of Japanese Painting, Tokyo (-2017)
2015　Completed Meisterschüler in Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, Germany (under Prof. Annette Schroeter)
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Lives and works in Germany

http://yukakashihara.com

Hideaki Kawashima

Hideaki Kawashima was born in Aichi, Japan in 1969. After graduating from Tokyo Zokei University in 1991, Kawashima undertook two years of training in Buddhism at the Hieizan Enryakuji Temple from 1995, thereafter commencing his career as an artist in 2001. Kawashima has presented his work in numerous exhibitions internationally and domestically. His major exhibitions include, “Japanese Experience Inevitable” (Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria, 2004), “LIFE” (Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki, Japan, 2006), “Idol!” (Yokohama Museum of Art, Kanagawa, Japan, 2006), and “Little Boy” (curated by Takashi Murakami, Japan Society, New York, 2006). In 2007 he took part in the “Pocheon Asia Biennale,” followed by a solo exhibition at the Kukje Gallery (Seoul, South Korea) in 2009, and two solo exhibitions at the Richard Heller Gallery (Santa Monica, USA) respectively in 2011 and 2014.

Makiko Kudo

Makiko Kudo was born in 1978 in Aomori, Japan. In 2002, she graduated from the Oil Painting Department of Joshibi University of Art and Design. She currently lives and works in Kanagawa, Japan.
In 2002, she participated in a group exhibition curated by Tomio Koyama “Fragile Figures” (Palette Club, Tokyo) as well as a group exhibition curated by Takashi Murakami “Tokyo Girls Bravo 2” (NADiff, Tokyo). After 2004, she has presented her work in numerous exhibitions internationally and domestically.

In Makiko Kudo’s paintings, a mental image-landscape unfolds within which both things she encounters in daily life and the dream-like world of her imagination that have formed a single-harmonized entity. Her audacious compositions are over-brimmed with a sense of chaotic liveliness, dynamic yet detailed brushstrokes, balanced vibrant colors, and the multiple settings and perspectives which develop simultaneously within them.

Her major solo exhibitions were held at Tomio Koyama Gallery in 2016, Wilkinson Gallery, London in 2015 and 2012, Marc Foxx Gallery, LA in 2011 and Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenhagen in 2010. Her major group exhibitions include “The Way of Painting” (Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2014), “The New International 2014” (Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2014), “Towada Art Center 5th Anniversary Exhibition: flowers” (Towada Art Center, Aomori, 2013), “Body Language” (Saatchi Gallery, London, 2013), “Pathos and Small Narratives” (Gana Art Center, Seoul, 2011), “Pretty Baby” (Modern Art Museum, Modern Art museum, Fort Worth, TX, 2007), “MATRIX213: Some forgotten place” (Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA).

Kudo’s paintings have been acquired by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Olbricht Collection (Germany), Saatchi Collection (London), Flowerman Collection, the Japan Foundation and the RyutaroTakahashi Collection (Tokyo). Her monograph “Turning” was published in 2012 from Tomio Koyama Gallery.

Toru Kuwakubo

Toru Kuwakubo was born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1978. He graduated from the Department of Painting, Oil Painting Course at Tama Art University in 2002. He currently lives and works in Kanagawa.

Kuwakubo started his artistic practice with a theatrical approach, finding the figure of an imaginary painter within himself as a means to explore contemporary art through the medium of painting. His unique expressions created by a classical technique of layering thick oil paint to depict contemporary imagined sceneries reminiscent of the work of Van Gogh, have received acclaim both internationally and within Japan.

The “Calendar Series,” which he started producing in 2014, depicting the respective lives of great masters within art history upon a single canvas, was finally completed in 2020. In the “Calendar Series,” prominent painters selected by Kuwakubo, such as Munch, Van Gogh, and Modigliani, are each assigned a month in the calendar, and the works, studios, and lives of these artists are expressed as spectacular spaces of alternate dimension through manner of Kuwakubo’s own interpretation, serving as an ultimate homage that gives rise to a certain resonance that transcends both time and space.

He has held solo exhibitions in numerous locations throughout the world including New York, London, Copenhagen, Singapore, Seoul, Taipei and Tokyo. Major group exhibitions include “Site: Place of Memories, Spaces with Potential” (Hiroshima MOCA, Hiroshima, 2013), “Tokyo Painting II | Mindscape between interior and exterior” (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, 2013), “Artist File 2010: The NACT Annual Show of Contemporary Art” (The National Art Center, Tokyo, 2010) and “Tokyo Wonder Wall” (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2003).

Kuwakubo won First Prize at the 3rd D-Art Biennale (2013), VOCA Encouragement Prize sponsored by The Ueno Royal Museum (2012), the 3rd Koji Kinutani Prize by the Mainichi Newspaper (2011) and the Tokyo Wonder Wall Award sponsored by Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2002).
His works are included in numerous public collections including JAPIGOZZI Collection, the DAI-ICHI LIFE Insurance Company, Ryutaro Takahashi Collection, Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Taguchi Art Collection and Toyota Art Collection.

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.

Atsushi Fukui

Atsushi Fukui was born in 1966 in Aichi prefecture. In 1989, he completed his B.A. in oil painting at Tokyo University of the Arts. He is currently based in Yamanashi prefecture.

His major solo exhibitions include “air” (2016, yu-un, Tokyo) and “Council of Backpacking” (2015, ROPPONGI HILLS A/D GALLERY, Tokyo). His first show at Tomio Koyama Gallery was the group exhibition “morning glory” curated by Yoshitomo Nara (Tokyo, Japan, 2002). Thereafter, he held 6 solo exhibitions at Tomio Koyama Gallery.
Fukui’s major group exhibitions include “TAKAHASHI COLLECTION Mindfulness!” (2013, Kirishima Open-Air Museum, Kagoshima, Japan [touring Sapporo Art Museum, Hokkaido, Japan]) “ORANGE SKY” (2011, RH Gallery, New York), “Punkt Art 2011 David Sylvian-in cooperation with Atsushi Fukui uncommon deities” (2011, Sorlandets Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand, Norway), “convolvulus: Atsushi Fukui / Hideaki Kawashima” (2009, Michael Ku Gallery, Taipei), “The Masked Portrait” (2008, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York), “ROPPONGI CROSSING” (2004, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo). His works have been included in the public collections of The Olbricht Collection (Germany), The JAPIGOZZI Collection (US/ Switzerland), The Takahashi Collection (Japan) and The Japan Foundation (Japan).