Tomio Koyama Gallery Tennoz is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Sakura Wada entitled “) (”. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibition at our gallery.

【About Sakura Wada and her works
The originality of Wada’s practice in terms of an active, multifaceted appreciation of art, which demonstrates “mutual negotiation” and “hints”】

Sakura Wada was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1999, and graduated from Tokyo Zokei University in 2024 majoring in painting. That same year, she won both the Tomoko Yabumae Prize and Tomio Koyama Prize at Art Award Tokyo Marunouchi 2024. She has held four solo exhibitions to date.
While Wada’s practice is rooted in painting, she has developed various modes of artistic expression that are not bound by genres such as installation, video, and performance, while making use of fabrics and embroidery that are a familiar presence in everyday life.

These are major themes in her work: namely, “mutual negotiation” and “hints.”
Wada’s deep interest in the sense of equilibrium to be found in our relationships with others and the power balance within them has led her to “avoid the one-sided viewing of paintings by hanging them on the wall.” Instead, she has made her paintings freestanding, with their own feet, that are as large as an entire wall, or painted on both the front and back. The works themselves represent hints at something to be noticed, encouraging the viewer to engage in a process of active and multifaceted appreciation of art.

【On the current exhibition and Wada’s new works: front and back, the gaze and the eye, the world of her works that leverages the space and does not imply a one-sided relationship】

Wada considers the title of this exhibition — “) (” — to be a visual symbol. She explains that it should be read as “outward-facing round brackets,” and that the title has the following meaning.

“Round brackets, which are used in novels to express the thoughts of the main character, face outward and are open.”
“It is as if the front and back have been reversed: feelings that are hidden or unreadable to others are presented as the ‘back.’ ‘Front and back’ are important keywords in my practice, and the title of this exhibition also offers a hint to deciphering my work.”
“If we take 「」as the space of the gallery, there seem to be things ) ( inside it that face outward. I find this rather interesting.「 ) ( 」These forms are visible. For this exhibition, the gaze or the eye is a kind of sub-theme in the paintings, so there is a double meaning at play here.”

In Wada’s works, embroidery that produces the same pattern from both the back and front, and the interesting fact that a remix of a reggae music record called a “dub,” which is recorded on the reverse side of that record, represents a “surface created solely from the reverse side,” are also important elements that create a world of artworks that does not imply a one-way relationship.

Dogs often appear as motifs in Wada’s work because of her interest in the exquisite balance between discipline and affection, which can be seen, for example, in the act of a person hitting his dog in the name of discipline, and in the mysterious existence of “dogs as pets.” This dynamic extends to Wada’s references to power relationships, and relationships between parents and their children, men and women, and our relationship to other people.

Wada’s new work, Dreaming, is a large painting measuring over 3 meters in length, and will be displayed on the front wall upon entering the gallery space. There seems to be an unbalanced relationship between the motif of the person lying down with his eyes hidden and the dog standing over him with a somewhat dignified look in its eyes. By placing a painting with the opposite composition (a sleeping dog and an awake person) on the staff room wall behind it, however, Wada hopes to create paintings that allow visitors to look around and discover the gallery space, changing the way they see it from the front and back.

The werewolf, depicted as neither animal nor human, is neither adult nor child, but an in-between being that also reflects the ferocity of its rebellious, unbalanced self.
Motifs that evoke memories of favorite childhood items like stuffed toys, familiar soft materials, and various stories will also serve as hints at this process of mutual negotiation.

Each person has a different way of looking at things. Time, space, and distance change the relationship between them.
We hope you will come and experience the world of Wada’s works.

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For press inquiries, please contact: press@tomiokoyamagallery.com (Makiko Okado)
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