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June 2026: The Colors Exhibition
kemono gallery
Event Dates: June 1, 2026 – June 25, 2026
kemono gallery
~Profile~
Born in Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture, in 1982.
In 2004, he began creating art following an experience with intense light. Since then, he has developed his painterly expression, drawing on inner impulses and primal imagery.
In 2014, he was nominated as a member of the Japan Art and Design Internationalization Foundation (JADIF). Since that year, he has exhibited in the foundation’s selection exhibition (Setagaya Art Museum) and other events, receiving the JADIF Award, the Chairman’s Award, and the Council Award.
Kemono Gallery's Commitment
Drawing on nature and a sense of the mythical, I depict the “presence” of living creatures and beings.
The patterns and colors that appear in my work are not mere decoration; they are records of the sensations and energy that emerge when I gaze upon these beings.
I call this sensation “kemonography,” and in my work, I strive to visualize not only their visible forms,
but also the atmosphere and intangible presence that lie beneath them.
Through the things that exist in the margins, at boundaries, and in the liminal space between reality and fantasy, I aim to create works that touch the depths of each viewer’s own senses.
Exhibited Works
Breath of an Unnamed Land
Size: 18 × 14 cm
¥23,000 (tax included)
This work does not depict any specific god or spirit. It is an attempt to visualize the atmosphere of an ordinary, unnamed piece of land.
We often find meaning in “special places.” Yet in reality, even an ordinary spot on the ground contains the accumulation of time, the cycles of the environment, and the flow of invisible energy.
In this work, I have entrusted that “breath of the place” to the minimalist symbol of a deer’s silhouette. The light radiating from its antlers is not a supernatural force, but a phenomenon arising at the moment where land and sky, and the inner and outer worlds, intersect.
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 2026
Framed
Into the Light
Size: 18×18 cm
¥34,000 (tax included)
The image appears first, and I paint as if tracing its contours.
Sensations and memories accumulated unconsciously in daily life, and a sense of presence that exists before it becomes words.
Like following a sliver of light filtering into the depths of a closed field of vision, I quietly cross that boundary.
Perhaps it is closer to a primal impulse than to hope.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 2024
Includes frame
Neo.w
Size: 18×18 cm
¥34,000 (tax included)
Living organisms, including ourselves, exist by metabolizing various substances and converting them into energy.
This is a perfectly ordinary cycle necessary for sustaining life, and because it is so natural, we rarely give it a second thought.
Yet within this process, invisible changes and flows are constantly taking place.
In this work, I have attempted to visualize these life phenomena—which pass by unconsciously—as a single “presence.”
This is one such fragment.
Media: Acrylic on wood panel
Year: 2024
Sheep
Size: 18 × 18 cm
¥34,000 (tax included)
Sheep have lived alongside humans as livestock since ancient times, supporting our lives through the gifts of meat and wool.
However, in modern times, we mostly encounter them not as “raw materials” but as processed products.
Amid the cycle of mass production and consumption, the “individual lives” that should lie beneath are gradually losing their distinct identity.
In this work, I have refocused my attention on the individual existence of each animal—the very beings that lie behind the items we wear and use every day.
They are not merely resources, but an accumulation of life, and exist as a chain of cells.
This work attempts to visualize their overlooked existence by, in a reversal of the traditional practice where humans “wear” sheep, instead “clothing” the sheep in “color.”
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 2024
Framed
White Moon
Size: 18 × 18 cm
¥34,000 (tax included)
In the stillness of the night, only the white moon floats, its outline sharply defined.
The beings illuminated by its light appear not merely as animals, but as a kind of “presence” lurking deep within nature.
Some have horns; others wag their tails.
Each is speechless, simply existing beneath the moon.
Since ancient times, the moon has symbolized the cycle of life, instinct, and the boundary between this world and the unseen.
In this work, I attempted to depict, through that white light, the primal senses that lurk within us and the sense of connection to the natural world at night.
The presence of an unnameable being, gazing back at us in the silence.
This is a fragment of a landscape that appears only on moonlit nights.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 2023
Framed
Messenger of Abundance
Size: 18×18 cm
¥34,000 (tax included)
A divine messenger who descends to earth with a flash of lightning and races across the fields.
It is said that wherever this figure appears, the blessings of the god of fertility dwell, and the land is filled with bountiful harvests.
Since ancient times, stone monuments dedicated to the thunder god and traces of this faith have been scattered throughout the Tohoku region.
While lightning is a symbol of fear, it has also been viewed as a force that calls forth rain, moistens the earth, and sustains the cycle of life.
In this work, by layering the memories, beliefs, reverence for nature, and prayers that remain in the land, I have depicted a “being that brings abundance” amidst lightning-like colors and a surging atmosphere.
The splashes and light racing across the canvas represent energy flowing from the sky to the earth, while the white figure standing at the center appears as a divine messenger mediating that power.
This is a fragment of memory from a time when the boundary between nature and humanity was still close.
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 2024
Framed
Moonlit Gathering
Size: 18×18 cm
¥34,000 (tax included)
Since ancient times, the rabbit has been regarded as a symbol of the moon, cycles, fertility, and boundaries.
In this work, I have depicted beings gathering as if drawn by the moonlight, while layering these mythical images.
This is a record of an invisible gathering
that opens for only a brief moment on a moonlit night.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 2023
Framed
Journey to the Stars
Size: 22.7 × 15.8 cm
¥45,000 (tax included)
What lies beyond the hill—is it a distant star, or a world yet to be named?
As if guided, the creatures make their way through the quiet night.
Travel is not merely a matter of moving from one place to another; it is also an act of tracing one’s senses, memories, and inner transformations.
Through landscapes that seem to reach toward the stars, this work depicts the “sense of heading somewhere” that people unconsciously carry within them.
The hill is a boundary, and as one moves beyond it,
the visible world gradually transforms.
The light and presence drifting in the stillness of the night harbor both anxiety about the unknown and the will to press on despite it.
This is a landscape along the way to a star that has not yet been reached.
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 2025
Framed
Luminous
Size: 18×18 cm
¥34,000 (tax included)
I attempted to visualize the inner light emitted by life itself. “Luminous” refers not merely to brightness, but also to the faint glow that seeps from the depths of existence. Since ancient times, creatures with horns have been depicted in nature worship and mythology as beings that transcend boundaries. While they are one of the countless lives scattered throughout the universe, they also resemble observers gazing back at this world. This is a record of small lights flickering at the boundary between night and life. Media: Acrylic on canvas Year: 2025
Beyond the Wind
Size: 18×18 cm
¥34,000 (tax included)
Through the transitional hours between night and morning, this work captures the sensation of stagnant things beginning to flow once more, as well as the “power to move forward into the future.”
The wind is invisible to the eye. Yet it flows undeniably, carrying life and transforming the world.
Beyond the gaze of the kirin lies a new landscape, untouched by anyone.
Media: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 2026
Filled with Light
Size: 22.7 × 15.8 cm
¥45,000
A single ray of light pierces through the depths of the layered cumulonimbus clouds.
The figure of a dragon emerging from that sliver of light seems as though the sky itself has come to life with a will of its own.
Prolonged rain and overcast skies sometimes leave a quiet heaviness in people’s hearts.
Yet rain is also a cycle that nourishes the earth and nurtures the coming season.
In this work, I have depicted the “blessing” hidden within the melancholy of the rainy season and the faint glimmer of hope that certainly exists beyond the clouds.
The light that streams in is not merely a change in the weather; it also foreshadows the liberation that comes after stagnation and the heat of the summer yet to come.
The dragon manifests at that boundary, enveloped in the flow of air and the changing seasons, heralding the beginning of a new cycle.
This is a memory of light that fills the world as the rain comes to an end.
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Year: 2026
Exhibition Title
Colorful Exhibition
Date
June 1–25, 2026
Time
11:00 AM–7:00 PM
Location
Gallery An Nihonbashi
12-4 Nihonbashi Odenmacho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 103-0011 Refolia 5F
Gallery Iori
[Access]
4-minute walk from Higashi-Nihonbashi Station, Exit A2
5-minute walk from Kodemachō Station, Exit 1