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Yukino Yamanaka + Rika Minamitani "Grace"

Until Feb 3

Artists

Yukino Yamanaka, Rika Minamitani

This exhibition presents a two-person show by Yukino Yamanaka and Rika Minamitani, two emerging painters born in the late 1990s who have been gaining attention both in Japan and abroad. While both artists consistently center their practices on the depiction of the human figure, they diverge in how they approach and interpret contemporary images of the human.

Yamanaka moves fluidly between figuration and abstraction, as if tracing the contours of the body together with the nonhuman presence that lurks within it. Shadows that block the light, voids that surface on the picture plane, and forms that flow like liquid all hint at a self in the process of transforming into something other. Her references to selfie-like poses and expressions sharply expose a distinctly contemporary anxiety—the instability of self-image in the age of social media, where the act of showing oneself gradually erodes the interior.

Minamitani, by contrast, positions painting as an “experiment,” probing her own sense of reality through intuitive trial and error. Her figures, marked by expressions of surprise or bewilderment, counter the simplicity of their facial features with exaggeratedly large hands and tattoo-like linear markings, as if inner impulses were seeping outward. Multiple layers of visual imagery overlap, creating a subtle sense of narrative tension that permeates the picture plane.

By placing the works of these two artists side by side, the exhibition reveals the layered nature of the human figure in contemporary painting from two distinct angles. Yamanaka pursues the “unfinished being” that exists between body and shadow, while Minamitani explores the “instability of gesture” inherent in painting itself, seeking the slight dissonance that appears at the moment an image takes shape. Though their methods differ, both resist fixing the figure into a singular form, instead making its fluidity and multiplicity central to their practice.

As these perspectives intersect, viewers are invited to confront the uncertainty inherent in the act of seeing. What emerges is not a completed portrait, but a reflection of ourselves—constantly shifting and in flux. This exhibition offers a quiet space for considering where “human reality” resides in the present day.

Schedule

Now in session

Nov 28 (Fri) 2025-Feb 3 (Tue) 2026 51 days left