Storymakers in Contemporary Japanese Art

Yūichi Higashionna (b. 1951, Tokyo) has continued to create works using commonplace objects from everyday life and surroundings as motifs. His works include the ‘”Chandelier’” series, in which round fluorescent lamps emitting pure white flat light are intertwined, and the ‘Flower’ series, an installation of paintings and objects moulded from artificial flowers and chain with spray paint. His major exhibitions include Large Interior (solo, Void +, 2021), Masked Portrait I & II (Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, 2011 & 2008), Glasstress (Fondazione Berengo, Venice, 2015 & 2011), The New Décor (Hayward Gallery, London) and, Roppongi Crossing (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2007).

Tomoko Kōnoike (b. 1960, Akita) was involved in the planning and design of toys, sundries, and furniture, and these activities have carried over into the present day after graduating from the Department of Painting (Japanese Painting) at Tokyo University of the Arts. She employs several kinds of media—animation, illustrated books, painting, sculpture, songs, photography, handcrafts, or fairy tales—and has participated in many interdisciplinary sessions with people in other fields, creating site-specific works that incorporate descriptions of a region’s climate and terrain, and continuing to address primordial questions about art. Her major exhibitions include Jam Session: Ishibashi Foundation Collection x Tomoko Konoike Tomoko Konoike FLIP (ARTIZON MUSEUM, Tokyo,  2020), and Inter-Traveller (Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2009). Her major travelling exhibition The Birth of Seeing will open at Takamatsu Art Museum, Kagawa, in July 2022.

Maki Ohkojima (b.1987, Tokyo) creates paintings and murals on the theme of ‘The World of Living Things’, depicting the intricately intertwined natural world and the endless chain of life on walls, floors, and ceilings in every direction. She stands in-between the contact zone of different things, and depicts the entangled aspects of life and death. OhOhkojima internalises her own vision of animals, forests, fungi, and minerals, and seeks to tell a story through her paintings. Her major exhibitions include Bones, the solid sea inside of body. – petrified plants  (HARUKAITO, Tokyo, 2019). Eye of whale (Aquarium de Paris, France, 2019) and Birds, sing the songs of the earth, through my bones (Dai-ichi Life Gallery, Tokyo, 2015). 

Fuyuhiko Takata (b.1987, Hiroshima) creates video works in the field of contemporary art. He completed the doctoral course in oil painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts in 2017. Takata creates pop and humorous video works that deal with diverse themes and images such as mythology, fairy tales, sex, gender, narcissism, and trauma. Most of his works are shot in the artist’s small apartment, and are characterised by a handmade feel and the occasional erotic expression. His major exhibitions include LOVE PHANTOM 2 (WAITINGROOM, Tokyo, 2021) and MAM Screen011: Takata Fuyuhiko (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2020).

Emily Wakeling is an Australia-based curator and art writer who specialises in contemporary Japanese art. She is the Curator of Rockhampton Museum of Art and was part of the curatorial team for the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art. Emily was based in Tokyo 2010-2016 and held several arts related roles in this time, including editor for Tokyo Art Beat, lecturer in cultural studies at Joshibi University of Art & Design and Kanagawa University, and author of Art & Society. She has independently delivered curatorial projects featuring contemporary Japanese artists in Australia including Compassionate Grounds: Ten Years on in Tohoku held in Brisbane and Melbourne in 2021.