Predominantly using photography for his works, Utagawa is drawn to the legal side at play in the strange act of creating works of art in parallel with everyday life. He produces works in such a way as to “correctly misunderstand” the introspective phrase, “why am I able to create artworks?” The artist is based in Tokyo, and graduated from Chuo University’s Faculty of Law.
Selected Exhibitions:
2024 Shashin kōzan / mattaki ie de wa—uchiwake ni yoru, Sprout Curation, Tokyo
2023 TOOLS OF GHOST, Sprout Curation, Tokyo
2021 Azamino Photo Annual: What We See When We Pause, Yokohama Civic Art Gallery Azamino, Kanagawa
Awards:
2015 Foam TALENT selected photographer
2013 8th 1_WALL Photography Competition finalist
Consideration of acts or events such as engaging with a range of subjects or playing or listening to sounds forms the starting point in the creation of works that are sometimes sculptural or performance-based.
Selected Exhibitions:
2023 UTSUKUSHII HUG!, Hachinohe Art Museum, Aomori
2021 Solo exhibition, El Cielo y el desierto están haciendo empanadas, FINCH ARTS, Tokyo
2021 Solo exhibition, Voices of Kamegame, Art Lab Aichi, Aichi
Awards:
2023 Beneficiary of the 2023 Kyoto City Special Bounty Program for Art and Culture
2018 Rokko Meets Art Art Walk 2018 Runner-up Prize
Born in Taipai, Taiwan in 1993, Chen is currently enrolled in a fine arts doctoral program at Tokyo University of the Arts’ Department of Intermedia Art. He playfully explores the joint axes of pictorial and descriptive acts of expression: how to organize the two, the borders between them, how they coexist and diverge. Recently, he has been interested in visual images that appear “cost-effective” (in terms of their information density), multilingual societies, and descriptive approaches in multilingual manga.
Selected Exhibitions:
2023 TOKAS-Emerging 2023: No Drifting until ダンプリング(Dumpling) to the door, Tokyo Arts and Space, Tokyo
2023 Solo exhibition, Suburban living, about killing two birds with one stone, AP Donou, Ibaraki
2022 Solo exhibition, A grain runs into a little shelf, NADiff a/p/a/r/t, Tokyo
Awards:
2022 TOKAS-Emerging 2023 selection
2020 22nd 1_WALL Graphics Exhibition Grand Prize
Born in Osaka in 1994, Tokiyoshi is a graduate of Kyoto University of Art and Design’s Information Design course. Tokiyoshi creates works that involve taking photographs of a subject with her smartphone, printing them onto copy paper, and then reproducing the subject in full-size as three-dimensional collages. Although involving accurate reproduction, forcing the flat photographic images onto a three-dimensional form results in unnaturally distorted reproductions with unique expressions. She deals with the theme of reproductions in a state where they can be recognized as roughly the same as the real thing, experimenting with repeated reproduction, going back and forth between flat and three-dimensional, and between real and fake.
Selected Exhibitions:
2022 Solo exhibition, Ki ni naru chūka ryōriten, WHITEHOUSE, Tokyo
2018 Solo exhibition, Number One, Guardian Garden, Tokyo
Prior workshop experience includes Hamu☆sutā bijutsukan de〇〇chū!?, in 2020 at Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
Awards:
2017 16th 1_WALL Graphics Competition Grand Prize
Born in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1983. In the years since graduating with a degree in Architectural Engineering from Toyohashi University of Technology, tomotosi has been involved in architectural design and urban planning. He began showing work at exhibitions in 2014, and predominantly creates video pieces on the theme of “actions that transform human behavior.” The artist also opened the TOMO City Museum in 2020, through which he proposes new ways of using the city.
Selected Exhibitions:
2021 The Missing Sun, Gallery10 [TOH], Tokyo
2019 Aerobic Nampa, Museum of Modern Art, Saitama
2018 tttv, chuohonsengarou, Tokyo
Awards:
2019 Image Forum Festival 2019, Audience Award
2019 CREATIVE HACK AWARD 2019, 2nd Prize
Born in Tokyo, Nakada graduated from the Department of Sculpture at Tokyo University of the Arts’ Graduate School of Fine Arts.
Nakada draws on her experience performing on stage with the intention of becoming a professional ballerina, creating works using ceramics, computer graphics, and video. She incorporates theatrical elements felt in everyday life into stories based on works of ballet and theater, or fairy tales. The artist explores the empty nature of human beings by juxtaposing her hollow ceramics with her role as a vessel during performances.
Selected Exhibitions:
2024 Draw Lines & Shapes in My Maps, T&Y gallery, Los Angeles
2024 Solo exhibition, WHEEL of FORTUNE, GALLERY ROOM A, Tokyo
2024 beyond form GUSHA GUSHA, KUSHA KUSHA, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, Tokyo
Awards:
2022 Tokyo Midtown Award Grand Prize
2022 CAF Awards 2022 selection
Born in 1997. Graduated with an MFA in Oil Painting from Tokyo University of the Arts’ Department of Painting.
Phenomena where things repeatedly arise and transform—ants piling sand, puddles that change every time the rain falls, fountains of water that maintain their shape through the interaction of the propulsive jet and gravity—such are the motifs depicted by Hiramatsu. These are all things or phenomena that lack clear demarcating boundaries, and which have no frontality. She is in search of forms of pictorial expression that go beyond the paradigm of a viewer standing directly in front of a painting, to take greater account of the circumstances of the exhibition.
Selected Exhibitions:
2024 TOKAS-Emerging 2024: heap up sand, Tokyo Arts and Space, Tokyo
2023 Solo exhibition, Ikari, Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo
2022 Solo exhibition, A Little Bit Different, ARK Hills 25th Floor, Tokyo
Awards:
2022 Art Award Tokyo Marunouchi 2022 (Mitsubishi Estate Co., Ltd. Prize)
2022 ART IN THE OFFICE 2022
