From October 9th (Fri) to November 5th (Thu), the "Asami Kiyokawa / Shiori Tono / Ayumu Yamamoto" exhibition will be held at Isetan The Space on the 2nd floor of the Isetan Shinjuku Main Building.

Asami Kiyokawa, Shiori Tono, and Ayumu Yamamoto—these three artists, gathered at MAKI Gallery, which has been introducing world-leading artists to both domestic and international audiences since its establishment in 2003, gently re-examine the contours of reality from their respective different perspectives and methods. In this exhibition, where body and sense, inner and outer worlds intersect, the interplay of the works creates a rich landscape that cannot be confined to a single theme.

Please enjoy this space that opens up new possibilities for seeing through the interplay of multifaceted perspectives.

Asami Kiyokawa

Born on Awaji Island in Hyogo Prefecture, she is a contemporary artist based in Tokyo. After studying fashion design, she developed a unique style of expression that bridges the gap between fashion and art. Since her first solo exhibition in 2001, she has presented her work both domestically and internationally.

Known for her unique technique of embroidering threads and beads onto photographs, fabrics, and books, and combining different materials, she has created a distinctive style. In her representative work "Beauty Collection," she brings out the inner lives and personalities of people through embroidery, and in "TOKYO MONSTER," she captures people living in the city from her own unique perspective, visualizing their desires, emotions, and the atmosphere of the times by layering diverse materials such as threads, fabrics, and beads.

What she consistently focuses on is the existence of things invisible to the eye, such as memories, emotions, and the presence of life. Starting with thread, I intersect various materials such as photographs, fabrics, beads, and paints, expanding her expression from two-dimensional to three-dimensional and into space. My work continues to evolve, with pieces like "Our New World" and "Serendipity" where nature and artificiality, reality and fiction intersect.

In 2026, she will publish "Invisible Garden," an art book summarizing his creative thoughts and sensibilities over 25 years.

Shiori Tono

Born in Oita Prefecture in 1994, Shiori Tono completed her studies in oil painting at the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Onomichi City University, and is currently based in Oita.

Tono uses childhood albums and self-taken photographs as motifs to express the importance and transience of pure memories that are recalled unexpectedly. Past memories are crushed by the information that accumulates in the brain every day, sometimes leaving only abstract and fragmented images. Facing this experience that everyone has, Tono represents the ambiguity of memory with noise that shows the deterioration of digital images, and skillfully depicts it on a canvas that mimics a device screen.

The photographs that serve as the motifs were taken at various times, and the more unclear the contours of the memories, the greater the distortion in the artwork, making it more difficult to find the original form. However, even from memories that have mostly been forgotten, Tono picks up the fragments that remain in his mind and carefully breathes life into those memories in each 3 x 3 cm grid. The process of creating a grid every other row with masking tape and calmly applying oil paint from one end to the other is an act of confirming the existence of the things that make up Tono himself today and recording them on the canvas.

Ayumu Yamamoto

Born in Tokyo in 1995, Ayumu Yamamoto graduated from the Department of Oil Painting, Faculty of Art and Design, Musashino Art University in 2018. In 2020, she furthered her studies in oil painting at the same university's graduate school, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree. She continues to work in Tokyo.

Yamamoto's vibrant works, using humans, animals, and plants as motifs, express the "real world" that resides beneath her fantastical style. Her gorgeous works, which seem to depict blissful moments such as lovers surrounded by abundant nature, are riddled with countless contradictory emotions and stories, creating an unsettling atmosphere. Opposing elements such as intimacy and discord, light and shadow, order and chaos coexist on a single canvas, revealing the multifaceted reality. Each of her works, with oil paints applied in a free-flowing manner, moves between figuration and abstraction, possessing a powerful presence that draws the viewer into Yamamoto's world.

— Planning Cooperation —

MAKI Gallery was established in 2003 with the aim of introducing avant-garde artists from postwar Japan, and has gradually shifted its focus to emerging contemporary artists. In addition to its gallery in Omotesando, which opened in 2014, it opened a large new space in TERRADA ART COMPLEX I in Tennozu in 2020. At these two locations, the gallery handles a wide range of works by internationally active artists such as Mungo Thomson, Miya Ando, Susumu Kamijo, and Marius Bercea, while also introducing young Japanese artists such as Ligre Anne Kagioka, Keisuke Tada, and Takuro Tamura to a global audience.

Production by STUDIO ALTA

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