Kisho Kakutani "Contours of Scenery"
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Kisho Kakutani
In 2023, Kisho Kakutani held his first solo exhibition, Mediator and Protective Wall, at SHIKISAISHA GALLERY. Contours of Scenery marks his second solo exhibition with the gallery.
Kakutani creates paintings based on images of his surroundings captured with a smartphone. Photographs taken casually in everyday life gradually become detached from the memories and sensations associated with the moment they were taken, taking on a life of their own as images. Working from this distance between the photograph and his own memory, Kakutani has continued to explore the relationship between seeing and recognizing. In Contours of Scenery, Kakutani considers everything that enters our field of vision as “scenery,” examining the subjects we recognize within it and the boundaries that define them. The exhibition focuses on the contours we unconsciously draw through the act of seeing, as well as the ambiguous spaces that emerge between them. Through new and earlier works, Kakutani explores the relationship between seeing and recognition.
His paintings bring sharply rendered passages into coexistence with areas where the image becomes ambiguous through blurring and diffusion. By deliberately withholding a degree of visual information, Kakutani resists fixing what is depicted into a single, definitive image, leaving space for viewers to imagine what may lie beyond what can be clearly seen. Faced with an ambiguous image, we draw on our own memories and experiences to complete what remains unseen and form an image in our minds. In Kakutani’s work, this difficulty of seeing does not simply conceal the subject; rather, it creates a space in which the viewer’s imagination can enter.
In the new work Self portrait (2026), this gaze turns toward the artist himself. The painting depicts Kakutani’s own figure. At a time when we encounter countless images through smartphones and social media, it has become commonplace to see not only others but also ourselves through screens. What we see directly, what we encounter through photographs and moving images, and what remains with us as memory and lived experience increasingly overlap. What do we see, where do we perceive a contour, and how do we come to recognize it as a distinct image? Contours of Scenery considers not only the subjects depicted, but also the processes of recognition that take place within us as viewers. Three years after his first solo exhibition, this presentation brings together new and earlier works to revisit Kisho Kakutani’s ongoing inquiry into seeing and recognizing—and the scenery that emerges in the space between them.
Kakutani creates paintings based on images of his surroundings captured with a smartphone. Photographs taken casually in everyday life gradually become detached from the memories and sensations associated with the moment they were taken, taking on a life of their own as images. Working from this distance between the photograph and his own memory, Kakutani has continued to explore the relationship between seeing and recognizing. In Contours of Scenery, Kakutani considers everything that enters our field of vision as “scenery,” examining the subjects we recognize within it and the boundaries that define them. The exhibition focuses on the contours we unconsciously draw through the act of seeing, as well as the ambiguous spaces that emerge between them. Through new and earlier works, Kakutani explores the relationship between seeing and recognition.
His paintings bring sharply rendered passages into coexistence with areas where the image becomes ambiguous through blurring and diffusion. By deliberately withholding a degree of visual information, Kakutani resists fixing what is depicted into a single, definitive image, leaving space for viewers to imagine what may lie beyond what can be clearly seen. Faced with an ambiguous image, we draw on our own memories and experiences to complete what remains unseen and form an image in our minds. In Kakutani’s work, this difficulty of seeing does not simply conceal the subject; rather, it creates a space in which the viewer’s imagination can enter.
In the new work Self portrait (2026), this gaze turns toward the artist himself. The painting depicts Kakutani’s own figure. At a time when we encounter countless images through smartphones and social media, it has become commonplace to see not only others but also ourselves through screens. What we see directly, what we encounter through photographs and moving images, and what remains with us as memory and lived experience increasingly overlap. What do we see, where do we perceive a contour, and how do we come to recognize it as a distinct image? Contours of Scenery considers not only the subjects depicted, but also the processes of recognition that take place within us as viewers. Three years after his first solo exhibition, this presentation brings together new and earlier works to revisit Kisho Kakutani’s ongoing inquiry into seeing and recognizing—and the scenery that emerges in the space between them.
Schedule | Sep 25 (Fri) 2026-Oct 10 (Sat) 2026 Opening Hours Information
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Website | https://www.shikisaisha.com/exhibition/kisho-kakutani-contours-of-scenery | ||||
| Venue | Shikisaisha http://www.shikisaisha.com/ | ||||
| Address | 2F Nishibori 11-banchi Bldg., 2-11-9 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0031 | ||||
| Access | 1 minute walk from exit A7 at Takarcho Station on the Toei Asakusa line, 3 minute walk from exit 6 at Kyobashi Station on the Ginza line, 10 minute walk from the Yaesu Central exit of JR Tokyo Station. | ||||
| Phone | 03-3535-2131 |
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