Artist

Born in 1968 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. Graduated from Tokyo National University of fine Arts and Music with MA in sculpture in 1995.
TANADA Koji uses the ancient traditional Japanese woodcarving technique of Ichibokuzukuri, sculpture made from a single block of wood, to create statues of boys and girls. With slender limbs, expressive fingertips, and moist pupils that evoke diverse feeling. Giving expression to their immaturity and fragility that co-exist with supple possibilities of life, Tanada is attracting attention as a sculptor of the next generation.

Significant solo exhibitions in recent years include Eleven boys, one girl (The Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuoka, Japan, 2008) and Rise (Nerima Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2012 / travelled to Itami City Museum of Art, Hyogo, Japan, 2013).

Public Collection:
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan

Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Kagawa, Japan
Long Museum, Shanghai, China
The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
The Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuoka, Japan
The Universty Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan

Artwork

Desk Boy; Sun, Moon, 2015

Star Star, 2016

Blossoming girl standing on eight-sided forms, 2015

Takaokami – Kuraokami, 2012

Painter. Born in Tokyo in 1969, Yamaguchi grew up in Kiryu city in Gunma prefecture. In 1996 he graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts Graduate School (Painting Department) with an MA in Oil Painting. In 2013, his book “Hen-na Nihon Bijutsushi” won the 12^th Kobayashi Hideo Award.

Besides his bird’s eye view paintings of cities or battlefields, he traverses a variety of methods of expression including sculpture, manga and installation.

His major solo exhibitions include ‘TOKIORE(I)MIX” (Maison Hermès 8F Le Forum, Tokyo) and “Yamaguchi Akira: Stepping Back to Seek the Underneath” (Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito) amongst others.

He has further developed the wide range of his practice through public artworks at locations including Narita International Airport, on Tokyo’s Fukutoshin Line at Nishi-Waseda station, and at Fujisan World Heritage Center in Yamanashi Prefecture as its symbolic central painting. He has also created illustrative work and cover art for a variety of serialized newspaper stories, novels and so forth, continuing his prolific practice across a broad range of fields.

      Museum Collections:

Ohara Museum of Art, Okayama, Japan

The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, Japan

Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

Asahi Beer Oyamazaki Villa Museum of Art, Kyoto, Japan
The Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuoka, Japan
Takamatsu Art Museum, Kagawa, Japan
Equine Museum of Japan, Kanagawa, Japan
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Mead Art Museum, Amherst, U.S.A.

Artwork

Horse Stable, 2001

Ippuku Electric Pole, 2014

Setting up a Thousand Senju Kannon, 2009

Shitenno [Four Heavenly Kings] “Komokuten”, 2006

Portable Folding Tea Ceremony Room. 2002

Born in 1966 in Tokyo, Tenmyouya initially worked as an art director at a record music company. He later began his career as a self-taught fine artist. While utilizing a technique of traditional Japanese-style painting (Nihonga), he incorporates genre motifs of contemporary society and street culture. He calls this unique style Neo Nihonga.

Neo Nihonga draws inspirations and motifs of artistic expressions from across the world and imbues in it a strong degree of contemporaneity, social consciousness, and critical thinking. In recent years, Tenmyouya has expanded his artistic approach to include extravagant and dynamic aestheticism of the samurai-termed basara (“outlaw culture”) that, he believes, underlies Japanese culture throughout its long history, reaching beyond the stereotypically more subdued and austere images of Japan according to the notions of wabi, sabi, and Zen.

Some of the major group exhibitions in which Tenmyouya has participated include:  The 17th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (2010); Bye Bye Kitty!!! (2011) and Garden of Unearthly Delights (2014), Japan Society Gallery, New York, US, among many others.

Artwork

Japanese Spirit, 1997

Robot-Myouou, 2015

Kylin, 2004

Fighting-Spirit, 2008

RX-78-2-Kabuki-mono, 2005 Version