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Runa Wakamatsu "I Want to Fly Away"
Medel Gallery Shu Omotesando
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Artists
Runa Wakamatsu
Medel Gallery Shu is pleased to present Ruka Wakamatsu’s solo exhibition, “I Want to Fly Away,” from November 21 to December 3, 2025.
Ruka Wakamatsu, a rising artist who graduated from the Department of Oil Painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts in 2025, explores the delicate and ever-shifting boundaries between two-dimensional characters and the real world. Her practice employs experimental approaches that engage with the material qualities of her medium, inviting viewers to experience the subtle interplay between the tangible and the imagined.
Since childhood, Wakamatsu has been drawn to manga and anime characters—figures with whom she could empathize more deeply than with real people. This emotional connection manifests naturally in her paintings, where these characters emerge as reflections of both her personal imagination and broader contemporary concerns. Within them, one can glimpse the uncertainties of the modern world: fluctuating identities, the fragility of self-perception, and the desire to find emotional grounding in a landscape of constant change.
Wakamatsu’s use of diverse materials—whether pigments, textures, or layers of transparency—creates a painterly language that blurs the boundary between reality and fiction. The results are works that seem to hover between worlds, evoking the sensation of floating in a dreamlike space. Through this visual oscillation, she translates the act of “painting” into a form of exploration—a means of navigating and visualizing the unseen emotional states that exist between freedom and limitation, fantasy and reality.
Central to Wakamatsu’s artistic process is the act of painting itself—a deliberate and physical gesture through which she negotiates meaning and presence. Yet her works extend beyond the conventional framework of painting, venturing into new realms of expression that merge imagination, perception, and memory. Her canvases breathe with a sense of weightlessness, echoing the moment when the familiar becomes strange and the ordinary becomes transcendent.
Ruka Wakamatsu, a rising artist who graduated from the Department of Oil Painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts in 2025, explores the delicate and ever-shifting boundaries between two-dimensional characters and the real world. Her practice employs experimental approaches that engage with the material qualities of her medium, inviting viewers to experience the subtle interplay between the tangible and the imagined.
Since childhood, Wakamatsu has been drawn to manga and anime characters—figures with whom she could empathize more deeply than with real people. This emotional connection manifests naturally in her paintings, where these characters emerge as reflections of both her personal imagination and broader contemporary concerns. Within them, one can glimpse the uncertainties of the modern world: fluctuating identities, the fragility of self-perception, and the desire to find emotional grounding in a landscape of constant change.
Wakamatsu’s use of diverse materials—whether pigments, textures, or layers of transparency—creates a painterly language that blurs the boundary between reality and fiction. The results are works that seem to hover between worlds, evoking the sensation of floating in a dreamlike space. Through this visual oscillation, she translates the act of “painting” into a form of exploration—a means of navigating and visualizing the unseen emotional states that exist between freedom and limitation, fantasy and reality.
Central to Wakamatsu’s artistic process is the act of painting itself—a deliberate and physical gesture through which she negotiates meaning and presence. Yet her works extend beyond the conventional framework of painting, venturing into new realms of expression that merge imagination, perception, and memory. Her canvases breathe with a sense of weightlessness, echoing the moment when the familiar becomes strange and the ordinary becomes transcendent.
Schedule | Nov 21 (Fri) 2025-Dec 3 (Wed) 2025 Opening Hours Information
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Website | https://medelgalleryshu.com/exhibition/runa-wakamatsu-november-21-december-3-2025/ | ||||
| Venue | Medel Gallery Shu Omotesando https://medelgalleryshu.com/ | ||||
| Location | 4-28-18, Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001 | ||||
| Access | 1 minute walk from exit 5 at Meiji-jingumae Station on the Chiyoda and Fukutoshin lines, 7 minute walk from the East exit of Harajuku Station on the JR Yamanote line. | ||||
| Phone | 03-6434-9925 | ||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
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