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Interview | Tokyo-Based Artist Shota Yamauchi
Shota Yamauchi was born in Gifu, Japan, in 1992, and lives and works in Tokyo. He received his undergraduate degree in sculpture from Kanazawa College of Art in 2014 and completed a master’s degree in video and media art at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts, in 2016. His practice is primarily installation-focused, combining sculptural and video elements with a wide range of media and other forms, including performance and scent. Through his work, he explores relationships between self and world, as well as boundaries between the real and the mythical.
Solo exhibitions include The Crystal World, Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art, Kyoto (2024); and MAM Project 030 x MAM Digital: Yamauchi Shota, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2022) .
Group exhibitions include Unknown Beings, Tomio Koyama Gallery Roppongi, Tokyo (2026); Ghost: When the Invisible Becomes Visible, Arts Maebashi, Maebashi (2025); WE ARE ME — We Never Just Pass By, Keelung Museum of Art, Keelung, Taiwan (2025); Art Macao: Macao International Art Biennale, Macao Museum of Art, Macao, China (2025); Ennova Art Biennale, Ennova Art Museum, Langfang, China (2024); WRO BIENNALE 2023: FUNGIBLE CONTENT, Grotowski Institute, Laboratory Theatre, Wrocław, Poland (2023); Ars Electronica Festival 2022, Sound Park, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria (2022); TERRADA ART AWARD 2021 Finalists Exhibition, Warehouse TERRADA G3-6F, Tokyo (2022); and Roppongi Crossing 2019: Connexions, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2019).
Theater work includes Monument of Odour: Forgotten Eros, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM], Yamaguchi (2024).
Being… Us?, 2025, Video installation, real-time AI generation, Dimensions variable, Photo by Kim Song Gi, Supported by Daimaru Matsuzakaya Ladder Project Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?
Growing up watching my parents make a living as fashion designers back in my hometown was an important starting point for me. I was always surrounded by art and design from an early age, and growing up in that environment, I naturally became interested in pursuing a career in art. I received my undergraduate degree in Sculpture from Kanazawa College of Art, and later I completed my master’s degree in video and media art at the Graduate School of Film and New Media at Tokyo University of the Arts. My experience in both sculpture and video continues to inform my current practice. Ever since completing my studies, my practice has focused primarily on installations that combine sculptural and video elements.
Being… Us?, 2025, Video installation, real-time AI generation, Dimensions variable, Photo by Shinya Kigure Your work explores the relationship between humans and technology. How has this relationship shifted in your thinking over time?
When I first started making work as an artist, I was strongly influenced by the video games I had grown up with. At that time, I was making video works by compositing images of my own body, exploring a figure moving between digital and physical space. I was interested in the idea that, like a game character or avatar, the body could exist not only in physical reality, but also as images and data. After the pandemic, so much of our experience was replaced by digitally mediated forms of communication and perception. In response to that, I came to feel a stronger need to emphasize the body’s presence in actual space, along with embodied aspects of being that cannot be shared through a screen—such as smell, the sense of presence, and the tactile quality of sculpture.
The Planet of Faces, 2022, Video installation with real-time generation, Dimensions variable, Photo by Keizo Kioku, Courtesy of Mori Art Museum How do you think about material presence when working with virtual or simulated spaces?
My installation work explores an intimate relationship between virtual space and materiality, rather than treating them as opposites. Video, light, sound, bodies, sculptural works, and scent coexist within the same space. I do not believe that virtual space and material existence should be treated as separate things. Rather, I believe they act upon each other and shape reality itself. For example, believing in something or imagining an ideal society may appear to belong to an immaterial realm of thought, yet such images and convictions move the human body, generate action, and in turn transform the material world.
The Dancing Princess, 2021, Video installation and performance, Dimensions variable, Photo by Tatsuyuki Tayama Courtesy of Terrada Art Award What are your thoughts on the use of technology and digital platforms in the art world today?
I think technology and digital platforms have a very strong influence on the art world today. While they have expanded the possibilities for works and information to be shared instantly and reach wider audiences, they have also increased the speed at which expressions are absorbed into popular trends and cultural currents, and then reproduced. Technology tends to absorb all forms of expression into a sea of algorithms. Its speed is so overwhelming, and at times so violent, that it can leave our capacity for judgment and sensitivity behind. Because this violence is deeply connected to fundamental human desires, it can become a force that drives expression within art. At the same time, on social media and digital platforms, it can also appear as a force that overstimulates people’s emotions and behavior.
Monument of Odour Forgetting Eros, 2025, Performance and installation, Dimensions variable, Photo by Shintaro Yamanaka, Courtesy of Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them?
Especially after I began having more opportunities to participate in international exhibitions, I became strongly aware that what I was thinking about and practicing was not as unique as I had thought. I realized that far more artists than I had imagined shared similar concerns and were working in similar ways. Even if a form of expression appears unique within Japan, it can easily get lost when placed in an international context. Being confronted with that reality was a big shock for me. Lately, rather than trying to prove my originality to the wider world, I’ve been focusing on letting the work emerge from the relationships I’m already part of. Rather than making this an internal process, I want to involve the friends and artists around me, allowing their influence to shape the work as I, too, am changed through that process.
In Between… Us?, 2026, Sculpture and performance, Dimensions variable, Photo by Masashi Otsuto, Courtesy of Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] What projects are you currently working on, and what can we expect from you in the future?
Earlier this year, I exhibited a large-scale public installation titled In Between…Us? at Nakameguro Park in Tokyo. This work combined a large, networked, rhizome-like sculptural object with performance, and was designed to continuously shift its state in relation to streetlights and the surrounding environment. The performers used different kinds of voices—coordinated, dispersed, harmonic, and deviant—to communicate with the environment. I created a program through which the environment could respond with its own state. As a result, the work came to engage with the urban light and sound, the movement of people, and other chance occurrences that were happening in the park. In my current projects, rather than restaging or reproducing previous states of the work, I want the form of the objects and the nature of the performances I’m working with to shift depending on the exhibition environment, the people involved, and the scale. This comes from the idea that, just as we change through our relationships with the surrounding environment as part of an ecosystem, the work too can transform in response to place and circumstance, moving into different states. Ultimately, this concept compels me to strive for a form of autonomous transformation in which even I, as the artist administrating the work, may cease to be necessary.Text and photo courtesy of Shota Yamauchi
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shota__yamauchi
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Interview | Tokyo-Based Artist Mariko Enomoto
Mariko Enomoto was born in 1982 in Saitama, Japan. She currently lives and works in Tokyo. After studying fashion, Enomoto began painting independently. She has created cover illustrations for major literary works including Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (Cho Nam-joo) and the Yomiuri Shimbun serial novel SISTERS IN YELLOW (Mieko Kawakami), as well as visual work for theatre and film.
Focusing on faceless portrait paintings, her recent practice explores mythology, narratives, poetry, and an oil painting series inspired by her daughters. Her monograph Sky, Flowers, Melancholy was published by Geijutsu Shinbunsha.
EAR, 2026, Oil on canvas, 185.4 x 137.2 cm Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?
After graduating from a fashion vocational school, I worked as a stylist’s assistant. The stylist I worked under collaborated with various photographers and painters, creating highly artistic visual projects. Witnessing those environments gradually intensified my desire to create something from scratch through painting—something I had loved since childhood.
From there, I began teaching myself how to paint while working multiple part-time jobs. I initially expanded my career as an illustrator, but over time, my desire to create work with deeper artistic integrity grew stronger, leading me to my current practice.
I have taken a long detour to arrive here. And in many ways, I am still on that detour.
Queen, 2024, Oil on canvas, 145.5 x 112 cm How do you approach balancing the fantastical with a sense of coherence or reality in your compositions?
For me, visionary elements are not something separate—they are scattered throughout everyday life. So I have never been particularly conscious of balancing the two.
Stories emerge from my usual walking paths, the color of the sky, the way birds move, or even the nape of a child’s neck. Perhaps the difference lies in whether what I see is simply observed as it is, or filtered through the lens of my inner vision.
Emily’s Portrait, 2023, Oil on canvas, 72.7 x 60.6 cm What is your creative process like? Do you follow a routine or work spontaneously?
For me, creation is something alive, and it is deeply influenced by my emotional state at the time. Sometimes a work expands as I paint, while at other times I erase large parts of it, ending up with something completely different from the initial sketch.
Rather than following a fixed routine, my process shifts slightly with each piece. At the core, I collect small “irregularities” or moments from daily life that leave an impression on me, and develop them into rough sketches while imagining the narratives behind those motifs.
Untitled, 2025, Oil on canvas, 91 x 72.7 cm In what ways did your studies in fashion influence your approach to painting and illustration?
It has had a profound influence on my work. Fashion can reflect the spirit of an era, but more importantly, it is a powerful element that reveals a person’s background, philosophy, and personal story.
It also represents roles, and at times, a form of intention or declaration.
innocence, 2026, Oil on canvas, 60.6 x 50 cm How do you approach exhibiting your work? What are your goals when showing your art in public spaces?
With each exhibition, I learn how to better communicate my worldview. I believe it is important to remain flexible and receptive to the perspectives and sensibilities of those present at the site, as unexpected “chemical reactions” can occur through that process.
Once the exhibition begins, if even one person stops in front of a painting and senses some kind of “irregularity” or discomfort, I feel that it becomes a guiding thread for my next work.
Daughter, 2025, Oil on canvas, 60.6 x 50 cm What projects are you currently working on, and what can we expect from you in the future?
While continuing to create works for solo and group exhibitions, I am also interested in exploring a deeper connection between my work and literature. I would like to incorporate elements of narrative and poetry into my future practice.
Above all, I believe that being able to leave behind work that I genuinely feel connected to is, in itself, a form of happiness.
Text and photo courtesy of Mariko Enomoto
Website: http://www.mrkenmt.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrkenmt/
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Interview | Tokyo-Based Artist Minoru Nomata
Minoru Nomata (B. 1955) lives and works in Tokyo. He studied Design at the Tokyo University of the Arts. After graduating in 1979, Nomata worked at an advertising agency as an art director. At the end of 1984, he left the company to focus on his own creative work. He held his first solo exhibition “STILL – Quiet Garden” in 1986 at the Sagacho Exhibit Space in Tokyo. It was a place with a concept of an alternative space, which was neither an art museum nor a commercial gallery, and was run by Kazuko Koike until 2000. Over the past four decades, he has continued to explore his own creative style, featuring imaginary structures and architecture, producing a body of works including paintings, drawings, lithographs and several wooden sculptures.
Further solo exhibitions include Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo (1993); Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2004); The Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan (2010); Sagacho Archives, Tokyo (2012, 2018), De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea (2022) and most recently at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2023). Until recently, Nomata was a Professor at the Joshibi University of Art and Design in Tokyo.
Windscape-19, 1997, Acrylic on canvas, 12.1 x 162.3 cm, ©︎Minoru Nomata Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?
I was born in 1955 in a semi-industrial area near Shibuya, Tokyo. My parents ran a small dyeing house that handled kimono fabrics. To the right of our house, there was a bathhouse with a chimney and a liquor store, to our left was a snack cracker factory, and in front were a woodworking shop and a tailor’s shop. Although there was a Meguro river, known as a famous cherry blossom viewing spot, the riverbank was made of concrete, and there was hardly any natural environment – it was Japan itself in the midst of development at that time. I had few occasions to go out with my family in my childhood though, I still vividly remember seeing the Tokyo Tower under construction in 1958, when I was three years old with my grandfather.
Around this time, construction began everywhere in preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Encountered with Olympic posters designed by Yusaku Kamekura, I became fascinated by the world of graphic design, finding the future in design expression. I majored in design at Tokyo University of the Arts, and joined an advertising agency after graduation. I have been naturally familiar with drawing and crafting as I have always believed that I can draw or craft anything that I could not obtain since my childhood, so it was a part of the process of finding out how to make a living through drawing and creation. But soon I started to realize that what I wanted to do was to give a form to my own aesthetic sense.
During the day I worked at the company, and at night and on holidays I spent my time producing artworks. My passion for artistic expression naturally intensified as I worked on my own production, but the clincher was the stage performance of Joni Mitchell. I was totally overwhelmed by her creativity, and I decided to quit my design job after nearly six years.
When I was looking for a place to exhibit my work, I happened to know about the Sagacho Exhibit Space, which was “an alternative space” run by Kazuko Koike in downtown Tokyo. It was extremely fortunate for me to be given the opportunity to hold my first solo exhibition in the space, as I envisioned a place where visitors could experience something new, other than a conventional gallery.
“STILL- Quiet Garden” First solo exhibition at Sagacho Exhibit Space 1986, © Minoru Nomata, Photo by Masayuki Hayashi What are the main themes or concepts you explore in your paintings?
It is not something I can make one clear answer, but I focus on polysemy, ambiguity, incompleteness, unfinishedness, deficiency or the relation between nature and artificial objects by depicting structures. They are not all of them, but part of the concept to which I pay attention.
I also give weight to simultaneity of past, present, and future — or that of construction, restoration, and demolition. My attempt is to depict the atmosphere of a space created by structures that deviate from their intended function or meaning.
Skyglow-H4, 2008, Acrylic on canvas, 53.3 x 145.7 cm, ©︎Minoru Nomata, Photo by Toru Kogure How has your artistic style evolved over time?
I do not think it is evolving, but simply expanding. My interests have not changed since childhood. Growing up seeing the cityscape of industrial districts or the large roofs and chimneys of the neighboring bathhouse every day, I have always been more interested in industrial products, machine tools, structures, geometric forms, which are the things made by human hands than in shapes created by nature.
If anything has changed, it would be just the ratio of artificial to natural objects. The scope of the motifs, subjects or materials I choose to draw has been expanded with the changing era, but the fact that they are all involved in things made by humans remains unchanged. The expanded two edges may appear entirely different, and if you cropped it partially, it might seem incoherent, but as I named my body of work as “Continuum” in my previous retrospective exhibition, all pieces are connected. Everything exists within this continuum.
Resonance-2, 2025, Acrylic on canvas, 162.4 x 65.2 cm, © Minoru Nomata, Photo © White Cube (Theo Christelis) Who or what are your biggest influences, both artistically and personally?
One of the reasons I aspired to be a creator was science fiction novels, especially speculative fiction such as Philip K. Dick’s. I read so many science fiction novels in my teens, and they taught me that we are allowed to think about the things or worlds that do not exist even as an adult.
During my college years, I casually stopped by a bookshop and found an art book of Charles Sheeler, an artist who painted industrial scenes. Those cityscapes were something really familiar to me, but I had not expected that industrial motifs could be fine arts until then. Ever since I recognized that kind of industrial art, my primal landscape of the chimney of the bathhouse or water towers became the main motif for me.
The music of Brian Eno, who made the new genre of ambient music, is also the most influential element for me. Music is the main source of my inspiration, and his music’s statelessness and the atmosphere of unknown time and place helped me a lot to visualize my imagination.
I have always been inspired by many creators from a variety of genres, and they all compose my artwork by interacting with each other in complex ways and accelerating the process.
Continuum-6, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 131.0 x 194.7 cm, © Minoru Nomata, Photo © White Cube (Theo Christelis) What projects are you currently working on, and what can we expect from you in the future?
I am currently working on making a new series of work for a next solo exhibition. It is very difficult to answer the question of what I can expect from myself in the future. My work is a response to what happens in society, so as of 2026, in this very unstable era, I would have to say that I do not know. Otherwise I have to lie.
If there is anything I can dare to expect, it might be a physicality that does not depend on technology. What I have always loved are the works in which hands, body, and technique become one, and that is what I strive for. I am using my own filter to see and make things, and it is quite physical and personal.
I think I am a bystander of technology sinceI have determined to make my work using only my own body, without digital technology. I know it is going against the times, but it is the last thing I can hold out hope for myself at the same time.
“WINDSCAPE” De La Warr Pavilion, 2022, Bexhill-on Sea, East Sussex, Courtesy of De La Warr Pavilion © Minoru Nomata, Photo © Rob Harris In what ways do you think the art world has changed since you started your career?
To be honest, I do not think I am in a position to speak about the art world by generalizing it. Above all, market research and investigating trends in the art world are not my job. I am always occupied with finding the sources of inspiration – mainly a new sound – and the landing point of my next piece that I have no time to think about something else. I would be the last person to know about movements in the art world.
Text and photo courtesy of Minoru Nomata
©︎Nomata Works & Studio Website: https://www.nomataminoru.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minoru_nomata/
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Interview | Tokyo-Based Artist AKI INOMATA
AKI INOMATA graduated with an MFA in Inter-media Art from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2008. Focusing on how the act of “making” is not exclusive to mankind, AKI INOMATA develops the process of collaboration with living creatures into artworks. She presents what is born out of her interactions with living creatures, as well as the relationship between humans and living things. Her recent exhibitions include “Bangkok Art Biennale 2024” (BACC, 2024), “Roppongi Crossing 2022” (Mori Art Museum, 2022), “Aichi Triennale 2022” (House of Oka, 2022), “Broken Nature” (MoMA, 2020), “The XXII Triennale di Milano” (Triennale Design Museum, 2019), “Thailand Biennale Krabi 2018” (Krabi City, 2018), “AKI INOMATA, Why Not Hand Over ʻShelterʼ to Hermit Crabs?” (Musée dʼarts de Nantes, 2018). In 2017, she stayed in New York City on an Individual Fellowship Grant from the Asian Cultural Council.
Thinking of Yesterday’s Sky, 2022–ongoing, Installation view of “Forest Festival of the Arts Okayama 2024” at Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art, Photo: Kenryou Gu Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?
I grew up in the heart of Tokyo, far from nature. Maybe because I didn’t have easy access to it, I became especially fascinated by animals I saw on TV and in picture books. Their distance from my everyday life only made me more curious about them.
At the same time, I was fortunate that my elementary school was located inside a university campus, where I could encounter all kinds of creatures. I used to pick wild plants and catch crickets and dragonflies to bring home. The contrast between the city’s concrete and the soil of the wooded campus shaped my earliest experiences.
My interest in working with living creatures began with Why Not Hand Over a “Shelter” to Hermit Crabs? (2009–). While studying at art school, I tried bringing natural elements into the artificial gallery space. In one piece, 0100101, shadows cast by ripples on water spread throughout the room. These projects came from a discomfort I felt with the highly controlled environment of urban life.
But over time, I started to realize that even the natural elements I brought into the gallery were still under digital control—it felt as if I was just recreating the very structures I had been questioning. That realization led me to a period of deep reflection. It was around that time I took part in No Man’s Land, an exhibition held at the former French Embassy in Tokyo. There, I created Why Not Hand Over a “Shelter” to Hermit Crabs?, which became a turning point and led me toward interspecies collaboration.
Thinking of Yesterday’s Sky, 2022–ongoing, Installation view of “Forest Festival of the Arts Okayama 2024” at Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art, Photo: Asaoka Eisuke How has your artistic style evolved over time?
My desire to become an artist began with a childhood love of drawing, though I never saw it as a realistic dream. A turning point came during my university years, when I encountered the theater of Jūrō Kara, a pioneer of Japan’s underground performance scene. His plays were staged in temporary red tents, where the boundary between fiction and the real alleyways surrounding the set became blurred. I was deeply struck by this use of borrowed scenery that merged stage and street.
As a student, I created media installations around the theme of “how to bring natural elements into urban space.” But over time, I began to question why my works always turned out exactly as planned. It made me wonder whether I was, in fact, reproducing the same sense of constraint found in today’s data-driven, tightly managed society. To break out of that cycle, I began thinking about collaborating with living creatures—beings with completely different ways of thinking—as co-creators. That idea has shaped the direction of my work ever since.
Why Not Hand Over a “Shelter” to Hermit Crabs? 2009-ongoing, Photo: Wakabayashi Hayato, Collection: The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto Your work often involves nature, animals, and technology—what draws you to these themes?
The greatest joy I find in my creative work is the moment when my own thinking shifts during the process. Collaborating with living creatures is full of those moments. Since I basically cannot communicate directly with them, I actually enjoy how they influence and change me.
In conventional contemporary art, it’s usually clear who the creator is. But in my work, authorship becomes quite ambiguous. For example, in How to Carve a Sculpture, there are multiple works made from wood gnawed by beavers. The process begins with the beavers chewing the wood. But are those gnawed pieces really sculptures? And who is the artist? One might say the beavers are the creators, or, considering that they leave the hard knots untouched, perhaps the wood itself can be seen as the creator. I find this complexity around authorship very compelling.
I have always felt uneasy with the hierarchical idea that humans should dominate other living beings. That’s why I try to create with creatures like hermit crabs and bagworms, with whom communication seems difficult. I’m not sure if this truly counts as “communication,” but I want to explore and reframe the relationship between humans and other species in new ways.
Think Evolution #1: Kiku-ishi(Ammonite), 2016-2017, Collection: MoMA What’s the most rewarding aspect of being creative in your experience?
One of the most memorable experiences during the creation of Why Not Hand Over a “Shelter” to Hermit Crabs? was designing the shells. I used a 3D printer to create shelters modeled after cities from around the world—but while the exteriors referenced human architecture, the interiors needed to appeal to the hermit crabs. I had to run countless experiments to find forms that they would actually move into.
My initial designs were simple, spherical shapes. But the crabs completely ignored them. I’d heard that some hermit crabs use plastic bottle caps as makeshift homes, so I tried that shape as well. Still, they preferred natural shells.
Through repeated trial and error, I began to understand that the spiral interior and smooth surfaces were key factors. For days, I observed their reactions closely, trying to interpret their choices. Living in their own distinct umwelt, or sensory world, they behaved in ways that defied my expectations. Often, I would find a carefully crafted shell discarded in the water the next morning.
To encourage them to adopt these new shelters, I had to let go of my assumptions and redesign from their perspective. This back-and-forth process—uncertain, responsive, and shaped by their behavior—felt remarkably different from traditional design. In the end, it led to forms that highlighted a striking contrast between geometric, man-made architecture and the organic logic of natural shells.
This experience profoundly expanded my approach to making. Rather than imposing a finished vision, I began to think of creation as an evolving dialogue—with nonhuman collaborators who bring their own agency into the process.
How to Carve a Sculpture, 2018- ongoing, Installation view of “Mutual Aid. Art in Collaboration with Nature” at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano What message or feeling do you hope your audience walks away with after seeing your work?
What I hope people take away from my work is a shift in perspective—a moment that invites them to rethink how they relate to the world around them.
For me, the most rewarding part of making art is when my encounters with living creatures challenge and transform my own values.
I hope viewers might experience something similar, prompting them to reconsider human-centered ways of seeing and to imagine new kinds of relationships with other beings.
How to Carve a Sculpture, 2018- ongoing, Installation view of “DANCING WITH ALL: The Ecology of Empathy” at 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Photo: Yuasa Akira Text & photo courtesy of AKI INOMATA
Website: https://www.aki-inomata.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/akiinomata
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Interview | Tokyo-Based Artist Gentaro Ishizuka
Born in 1977, Gentaro Ishizuka was awarded the Newcomer’s Prize of the Photographic Society of Japan in 2004, and was a recipient of the Agency for Cultural Affairs Overseas Artists Fellowship in 2011. In 2014, he won the Higashikawa New Photographer Award for his photo collection “PIPELINE ICELAND/ ALASKA” (published by Kodansha), which is a compilation of his early work. In 2016, he won the Grand Prix at the Steidl Book Award Japan, and “GOLD RUSH ALASKA” is scheduled to be published by Steidl in Germany. In recent years, he has been creating works that encourage a reinterpretation of spatiality in photographic expression in the age of social networking services (SNS), where photography has been incorporated into plain information, such as three-dimensional objects made of photographic paper and mosaic-like works created by weaving photographic paper into multiple layers.
Pipeline_Iceland, 2012/2023, 1200 x 1485 Type C print (shooting/printing) Can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background as an artist?
I work primarily in the field of contemporary art, using the medium of photography. I studied French literature at Waseda University in Tokyo, but dropped out after starting to work as a photographer for advertisements and magazine job while still in school. Currently, I am working on textile works and three-dimensional works using photographic paper which developing the photographic emulsion itself by myself, aiming to expand the concept of photography.
This year, a book of my long-cherished photographs will be published by Steidl in Germany.
Middle of the Night, 2016/2022, 1200 x 1485 Type C Print How do you select the materials you work with, and how do they shape your artistic vision?
Although digital cameras have replaced most photography, I still love the darkroom process of creating photographs, and I create my work in the dark. Specifically, I load color negatives into a large 8×10-inch camera, develop the negatives, and use the negatives to make prints for large installations.
Even setting aside the issue of quality, compared to digital photography, which is very simple and can produce highly detailed images, the process of shooting with analog film is a complicated, delicate, and materialistic act that may surprise those who are not familiar with it. I feel that in the darkroom, the primordial human desire to capture images is hidden.
I feel that if we only deal with data in the digital process, I will not be able to use our intuition, which is very important, and in order to use my intuition, It is necessary to immerse myself in materials.
Shoup Glacier, 2023, @New National Museum in Tokyo, Installation view What role do you believe art plays in social and cultural change?
In a very simplified way, I believe that artistic understanding includes many understandings that transcend language, and that they are an opportunity to bridge the gap between generations, gender, wealth, nationality, past and future, dreams and reality, human and animal, and many other things.
How has your artistic style evolved over time?
At the beginning of my career, I wanted to document the world through photography, and I wandered the world in search of themes and motifs to do so. In the process, I came across the landscape of the pipeline that traverses 1,300 kilometers through Alaska and the historical fields of the late 19th century gold rush that took place all over the world.
What I am interested in now is the history of the photographic medium itself, as well as the history of the world itself, and I am considering an attempt to deconstruct photography, which has a history of nearly 200 years, from the inside out. Specifically, I am questioning the flatness that is an absolute requirement of photography, weaving photographic paper, using photographic paper to create three-dimensional works, and even engineering the chemical image-making process inside of a photograph, the emulsion that is the source of the color photographic image, by myself.
Gold Rush Alaska, 2013/2024, 1200 x 1485 Type C print What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
It is to make a book. Then, it is to create an installation of space.
What projects are you currently working on, and what can we expect from you in the future?
The project is going on to track coastal glaciers in Alaska, Norway, Patagonia, and other regions that continue to retreat due to global warming, using human-powered sea kayaks. The project is called “Glacier Diary” and has been ongoing for 15 years. It is an attempt to make a huge natural object beyond human knowledge a private matter, and at one point it took about two weeks to record the approach to the glacier from civilization, little by little, bit by bit.
These will lead to a solo exhibition at my gallery in Tokyo and a solo exhibition at the Nara Municipal Museum of Art in 2026.
Text & photo courtesy of Gentaro Ishizuka
Photo Credit: Jiro Konami Website: http://gentaroishizuka.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nomephoto/?hl=ja
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Interview | Tokyo-Based Artist Goro Murayama
Goro Murayama is an artist who lived and works at Tokyo. Ph.D. in fine art. 2025- University of Tokyo, Project Researcher.
Murayama, who studied painting, explores the temporality and emergence of human acts of creation (poiesis) within the theoretical frameworks of biological systems and the philosophy of science. As seen in his representative series Woven Paintings, Murayama expresses the processes and patterns of self-organization through his drawings and paintings. In recent years, Murayama has extended his artistic endeavors by collaborating with scientists on AI pattern recognition and generation. These collaborations aim to deepen human understanding of and sensitivity towards artificial intelligence.
Field of Dreams, 2009, Installation view, MOT collection-MOT Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey?
I was born in 1983 in a suburb of Tokyo. My grandfather had a PhD in engineering and my father had a PhD in chemistry, so my family background was in physics and chemistry, but I wanted to be an artist. I did not particularly want to be an artist from an early age, but rather when I was in high school. I was (and still am) a fan of a British musician named Aphex Twin, who came to Japan to perform as a DJ. When I saw his overwhelming performance, I was shocked and awakened to the fact that I wanted to start some expressive activity. The first form of expression I chose at that time was painting, simply because I was good at it, and from there I began to explore painting expression that included musical temporality. I then enrolled in an art college in Tokyo, where I pursued creative research and also studied the latest scientific philosophy. This, combined with the scientific background of my birth, gave birth to my early works, “Textile Paintings”. As luck would have it, my work caught the eye of Yuko Hasegawa, then chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, at a graduation exhibition. It was accepted into the museum’s collection, opening the way for my debut as an artist.
When “I” did the re-enchantment, 2010, Oil, glue, bond, chalk, acrylic gesso, and acrylic medium on knitted hemp strings, chopsticks, staples, 550 x 600 cm How do you stay inspired and motivated to create new work?
Since the style of my work often involves the accumulation of a vast number of acts, I am always able to conceive of the next work during that long production period. My policy has been to present a new work at each new exhibition. In fact, I sometimes organize my own exhibitions to create new works. When I present my work in an exhibition, I have a specific person in mind whom I would like to show my work. It does not necessarily have to be an existing person; it can be a great thinker in history. For example, my first solo exhibition, “The re-enchantment of painting system” (2010), began with a quoted text by Gregory Bateson, a thinker I admire. I wondered what he would have said to me if he were still alive, and I created the exhibition as an answer to his thoughts. History provides us with endless inspiration and motivation. The latest science and technology is also a great source of inspiration. In particular, the development of AI in recent years has been remarkable, and in response to this, I have been continuously developing my artistic practice about AI since 2015. These contemporary intellectual sources are also a great source of inspiration and motivation.
Painting for emergence(pay attention to parameters of the system), 2014, Acrylic on woven hemp string, 240 × 230 cm, Takahashi Collection How has your artistic style evolved over time?
My work is based on the principles of nature and theories of life systems and self-organization, so it has developed in a way that simulates evolution. My early representative work, “Textile Painting,” is a hand-woven canvas made of hemp, on which I draw, weave, and weave again, and the work grows and repeats itself. The textile has a botanical, branched structure. In the beginning, the support was flat, with the flatness of the painting in mind. However, like a mutation in evolution, an error in weaving led to the emergence of multi-layered forms, which gradually became three-dimensional. My creative research up to that point is summarized in my doctoral dissertation “Emergence Painting” [Tokyo University of the Arts] written in 2014.
The portrait to Umwelts & programs, 2015, Acrylic on paper, lambda print, iPhone 6, 215 mm × 190mm [each] 
Decoy-walking, Installation view, 2019, Aichi Triennale 2019 Around 2015, I also began my current project on AI, attempting to contrast human production (poiesis), which I had been exploring, with the functions of AI. There are four projects, including AI cognitive systems such as face/gait recognition and human perception and body, protein structure prediction calculations and textile paintings, and learning generative AI using time-series image data from Murayama drawings.
Painting Folding 2.0, 2022, NTT Inter Communication Center 
For millennial future drawings – Human, Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Life, 2024 A thread that runs through my 15 years of creative research to date is the temporality of the human act of creation (poiesis). I believe that creativity is built into the process. I began by simulating the nature of this process using various theories of self-organization. In contrast to AI, I have also developed into an attempt to elucidate the process of creation, which includes anticipation and emergence.
Generative wall drawing for Megijima Onigashima Great Cave Mural, Setouchi Triennale 2025 What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
What excites me most is probably the ability to commit to different people, histories, and cultures across periods and cultural spheres. I believe that this interview is just one part of that. To that end, I would like to capture creativity on a larger scale, not within the narrow paradigm of art history, but by reconnecting science, philosophy, and art, and by defining the value of one’s own art in the context of anthropology. The latest work to be presented at Setouchi Triennale 2025 is an actual cave mural. I hope to open a commitment with all people and cultures of the past, present, and future.
Generative drawing for Japanese paper house, Installation view, 2019, Setouchi Triennale [Ogi-Island] In what ways do you think the art world has changed since you started your career?
It was 2009 when I made my debut as an artist. Shortly before that, in 2008, the Lehman Shock devastated the art market, and in 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake struck. My departure as an artist was rough, but after that, there was a movement in Japan to hold art festivals in various regions. Representative of these were the “Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale” (2000-) and the “Setouchi Triennale” (2010-), in which I would later participate. I think the major turning point came after the pre-Corona period, with the “Aichi Triennale” in 2019 and “Documenta” in 2022. Since that time, identity politics and its conflicts have always been and continue to be the subject matter and management issues of the exhibitions. A situation in which “who does it” is as important as or more important than the content of the work has swept the art scene. I feel that I want to see beyond this situation and what can be done to build new collaborations and relationships that are not limited by one’s roots or identity. I am in the process of developing works of art, workshops, and lectures at universities based on the act of “drawing,” which is found not only in painting but also in extremely diverse modes of expression and culture.
Data Baroque – A Thousand Drawings for Machine Learning, 2023-24, Acrylic on paper, iron pigments, 297 × 420 mm What advice would you give to emerging artists trying to establish themselves?
I am still in the middle of my journey, but I have a feeling that I have been an artist for 15 years. I feel that the world continues to move. If we forget this and position and value our work narrowly and trivially, there is a danger that our work will have a narrow cultural range and a short shelf life. Specifically, I think it is necessary to work on themes and projects that can be developed with development potential for about 10 years.
I also feel that in recent years, even though I am in my 40s, my physical production skills are still improving. In a project to create drawing time-series data for AI to learn, I made over 600 drawings over a year, documenting the entire process. This was of course significant as a work of art, but it was also a training ground for me. I think we all have training that we were given and practiced when we were young, but artists who have reached mid-career will have to design and grow their training.
I think it is quite important to have a sense of balance between carefully carrying out the work in front of you and taking charge of your activities from a medium- to long-term perspective.
Text & photo courtesy of Goro Murayama
Website: http://goromurayama.com/index.html
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goromurayama/
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Interview | Tokyo-Based Photographer Atsumi Takemoto
Atsumi Takemoto, a photographer based in Tokyo, delves into themes of death and time through her work. Utilizing collage, multiple exposure, and shutter speed manipulation, she juxtaposes past and present, creating a layered narrative that reflects life’s inevitable changes and the fragility of the human experience. Each piece evokes a sense of nostalgia while celebrating the deep gratitude of simply being alive.
Thirsty, 2023, 35mm film collage, fine art print, 14 x 17 in, 2023.10.2-12.8 Materiality Unleashed ＠Li Tang Gallery Thank you for sharing your work with us, Atsumi. Can you tell us a little about you?
First of all, I would like to say thank you for this wonderful opportunity. Thank you so much!
Nice to meet you. My name is Atsumi Takemoto. I’m Japanese. I was blessed with a wonderful family and grew up bright, energetic and active in the countryside during my childhood. I spent my college years in Kyoto and the Republic of Korea, And I studied fine arts (mainly arts management) and tourism. Since 2007, I have worked in the travel industry (tour conductor), a cultural complex (arts management), customer service in the restaurant industry, sales in the human resources industry (both B to B and B to C), and also as a producer in the advertising production industry, and I have worked as a marketing assistant and executive secretary in a foreign-affiliated company.
I experienced various ways of working.
Finally, I realized that I was wasting my time if I just kept working and drinking every day, so I started studying photography school that I could attend at night and on weekends for one year from 2014 (when I was 29!)
Why I chose “photography” at that time is still a mystery to me.
I used to take street snapshots every day, but there was a period of time when I could not take snapshots due to a request from the government to refrain from going out due to the pandemic. During that time, I began to collage street corner snaps I had taken in the past with current indoor photos of flowers, people, and really really various things.
2019-2020 with Mika, Digital art, video I never wanted to stop taking pictures and my dancer friend (Mika Ikeda) never wanted to stop dancing, too. We talked remotely every day and continued to take remote pictures together every day.
I have been collaborating with her for more than 10 years since we first met at a photography school. I am also working on a series of collages using her as material.
Koinobori, 2014 – 2024, Digital art, in production,
※Featured by Decagon Gallery https://www.decagongallery.com/atsumi-takemoto
Director John Manno, Model Mika Ikeda and Ippei Tanaka.The pandemic taught me that I have not lived this far alone and many other things.
LIFE, 2014-2023, 35mm film, Fine art print, 56 x 70 in Since 2023, I have been actively exhibiting and selling my collage works mainly overseas.
What ideas are you exploring in your practice? How has your practice changed during the past few years?
Since the beginning of my career as a photographer, I have been confident in my ability to capture “Sunlight”. Finding light and shadow.
Since about 2021, I think I have repeatedly trained intensively to create “light”. The habit of finding light on the street has been supplemented by an accumulation of training in making light in dark and confined indoor (spaces). Strangely enough, the act of “waiting” becomes enjoyable. The leisurely flow of time becomes comfortable. I have recently come to think that I used to be in a bit of a hurry to live.
After 2025, I want to resume street snapping in earnest. I am sure that some people will see it and notice my internal and technical changes.
Where are you currently based? As a photographer, what do you find the most attractive in your city?
I am currently based in Tokyo. Currently, I often visit two places: the first is Asakusa, and the second is Shibuya. Asakusa is a popular tourists spot where they can enjoy Japan with all five senses. It is a place that attracts tourists from all over the world, so recently I have been going there every weekday for just one hour to take pictures. It also serves as a hands-on learning experience for English conversation! ^-^
Asian people are relatively wary of me, but I feel like they relax their guard when I am in Asakusa. ^-^ Many people give me a peace sign when I ask them “Can I take your picture?”
People from Western countries approach my camera without saying a word. ^-^
Shibuya is a place where I have done my homework since I was in school for photography. I have a series in the making where I talk to girls in Shibuya and ask them to let me take their pictures, and I visit continuously. I don’t really like crowds, but I really enjoy hearing from young people who come to Shibuya from the countryside with some sort of purpose or goal in mind.
I wonder how my communication skills, which allow me to charge headlong to talk to people I have never met before without hesitation or hesitation, were nurtured in my personality. I can only thank my parents.
What is the most exciting project you’ve worked on so far?
The “Cactus” series mentioned above.
Cactus, 2014 – 2024, Digital art, in production For the past 10 years, I have always photographed girls I met in “Shibuya,” but I am planning to expand the locations (both in Japan and abroad).
Is there any advice you would offer to others?
Words have souls. Words have magnificent power. That is why I never say, “I quit photography.”
In the past few years, many of my friends have made the decision to quit photography. The reasons are varied, but I am deeply moved by them.
Words have a soul.
Many of my friends who have decided to quit photography have resumed it in a very short time. Please don’t play with me!
Words have a soul, and I am very weak.
“Words” and “photograph” can captivate people’s hearts and minds, but at the same time, they can also hurt people. The power of a “photograph” to condense emotions that words cannot express is magnificent. There are moments when I even feel fear.
First of all, we need to solidify the foundation to continue to be who we are without blurring. Everything depends on you. The reason you fell down was that you were trying to move forward. Even if you keep getting hurt in the same place, human beings are wonderful creatures, so you have a defensive response, or something like that, and you will be able to fend it off. And then you get hurt again in another place. That is me. The cycle repeats itself.
Humans are stronger than you can imagine. It is in times of pain that we remember to smile!
If you change, those around you will change. Believe in yourself.
And since we’re at it, I share quotes from photographers I admire that raise me to the next level on a daily basis. I wish you all the best in your life.
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“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” -Robert Capa
“A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” -Ansel Adams
“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.” -Robert Frank
“Which of my works is your favorite? The one I’m shooting tomorrow.” -Imogen Cunningham
“You just have to take the pictures. You don’t know what’s good and what’s bad until you take the pictures.” -Osamu Kanamura
“The world is always a defining moment.” “The past is always new; the future is always nostalgic.” -Daido Moriyama
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What are you working on right now?
① Bystander
The historic bridge, built in 1929, is to be demolished due to its age. This is the story of the interaction with the people who met on this bridge and the 10 years of photographing the bridge, which has already become unclimbable. I have not yet decided where I will set the endpoint in my mind.
Bystander, 35mm film, Digital art print, Ongoing production ② This isn’t the first time I’ve been to this road
A compilation of my work to date. I think I want to put an end to the way I deal with photographs (collages) that appeared irresistibly during the pandemic. I want to compile my work in order to clear up the blurring that has persisted since the pandemic.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been to this road, 35mm film, Digital art print, Ongoing production I plan to cross the ocean once this series has settled down. I am preparing to leave Japan and walk in many places. I am very excited.
Photography has magnificent power. Photography teaches us and reminds us of many things. I want to take a compelling picture. One photo that doesn’t need a title or words. It would be great to take one such photo in my life!
Wouldn’t that be a very dreamy thing to do?
I will continue to pursue photographs that can only be taken by going there and continuing to go there. For the first time in a long time, I was able to have a long and deliberate dialogue with myself. Thank you for giving me this wonderful opportunity. I had a wonderful time.
Text & photo courtesy of Atsumi Takemoto
Website: https://atsumitakemoto.com/
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/takeatsu_photo/
