About the +ART Column
In the +ART Column, we share articles that help make art feel a little closer to home. From seasonal artist recommendations to clear, beginner-friendly explanations, we explore the appeal of art from many angles. Our aim is to offer ideas that let art settle naturally into everyday life. We hope you'll explore the world of art with us, at your own pace.
Contents
- Introduction: We visited Geisai 2025 "Tamayura"!
- 1. What Is Geisai? Tokyo University of the Arts' Storied School Festival
- 2. The Mikoshi Performance: Geisai's Greatest Highlight
- 3. A Look at Some Captivating Works
- 4. A Little Aside: Food Stalls Only Geisai Could Offer
- In Closing: Geisai Is an Arts Festival to "Experience"
Introduction: We visited Geisai 2025 "Tamayura"!
We went to Geisai 2025, "Tamayura." Geisai is the once-a-year school festival of Tokyo University of the Arts, created hand in hand by students of the Faculty of Music and the Faculty of Fine Arts. This year, too, it was bustling with crowds, with art experiences unique to a school festival to be enjoyed at every turn.
Having visited in person, we'll share the appeal of Geisai as a whole, while focusing in particular on the exhibition in the Painting Building and the works that left a lasting impression!
1. What Is Geisai? Tokyo University of the Arts' Storied School Festival
Geisai is a festival held largely by the students of Tokyo University of the Arts—a one-of-a-kind cultural festival where music and fine arts merge. Geisai's greatest feature is precisely that music and fine arts are, quite literally, fused. Concerts and operas, art exhibitions, and stage programs all unfold at once, turning Ueno Park and the campus into something like a festive space of art.
The "Art Market," in particular, is hugely popular! In the tents of Ueno Park, student-made paintings, illustrations, sundries, and accessories are packed in close together—brimming with a quality and energy that rivals the professionals, truly like an art fair.
2. The Mikoshi Performance: Geisai's Greatest Highlight
At "Kaikō Ichiban," the event that opens Geisai, new students split into four teams to present a performance with the mikoshi (portable shrines) and happi coats they made themselves. This is, in a word, spectacular! The way the audience becomes one with the powerful performance and gets swept up in the excitement is itself an art display only Geisai could offer. It's a thrill worthy of being called Geisai's "main event."
The mikoshi that won the Ueno 6-chome Shopping Street Federation Award in the first-day judging once again paraded valiantly through the shopping street this year. The honored winning team was the "Japanese Painting, Crafts, Traditional Japanese Music & Theory" team.
This year's mikoshi theme was "Ikkirin—The Divine Beast That Beckons Peace and Happiness." Its meticulously crafted beauty of form makes everyone who sees it feel a heart of peace and harmony, stirring profound emotion.
3. Captivating Artworks You Can Encounter at Geisai 2025
Around the campus, artworks in a rich variety of expressions—paintings, sculptures, installations—are on display. Every one overflows with the individuality of its student, making it a place to experience the cutting edge of Tokyo University of the Arts' exhibitions firsthand.
◆ Aoi Kaneko
Aoi Kaneko, of the Graduate School's First Laboratory of Oil Painting Techniques and Materials, draws the viewer in with a rich sense of color and decorative composition. The strong contrasts of red, green, and blue, and the rhythm of repeating patterns, carry a boldness reminiscent of Henri Matisse. Yet whereas Matisse pursued an airy flatness, Kaneko's work adds a thick painterly surface and symbolic motifs, giving rise to a more material, multilayered world.
Vivid color and weighty texture intermingle, giving the viewer the sensation of peering into an otherworldly ornament.
Instagram: @gogo_gyunyuu
◆ Kosuke Nakamura
The work by Kosuke Nakamura, a fourth-year student in the Oil Painting course of the Painting Department, is marked by an imbalance between the reverberation of a nostalgic landscape and a geometric structure. Circular forms like faint lighting and a framework of steel pillars evoke something like a vaguely familiar playground or Ferris wheel, yet the space remains unreal and dreamlike. Looking at it, "memories of the past" waver as in a dream, and where reality ends grows uncertain.
The palette wraps the whole in delicate gradations based on purple, indigo, blue, and gray, while a brushwork close to pointillism lends depth to the texture. The boundary between background and motif is deliberately blurred, creating the illusion of peering into a landscape within memory—and that, too, is a great part of this work's appeal.
Instagram: @kosuke_rabi11on
◆ Sakura Tanaka
This is a work in which vivid motifs rendered in silkscreen are printed onto acrylic panels, layered upon one another in multiple strata. Background plants and abstract forms emerge through several transparent layers of acrylic, and the way color and texture shift each time light passes through is so beautiful that the work itself seems to be breathing.
What's more, the printed images and the material presence of the acrylic come together to offer a visual experience of moving back and forth between reality and fantasy. Depending on your viewing angle and the lighting, it reveals different facets, its expression seeming to change over time.
Instagram: @tanakara_hamu
4. A Little Aside: Food Stalls Only Geisai Could Offer
We discovered some unique food stalls that only an art university could come up with!
What stood out most was the "Ice Cream with Plaster-Cast Chocolate." A small, random plaster-cast-shaped chocolate is set on top, and the gap between its playful look and its taste made it a delightful treat. It was a piece of gourmet fun that conveyed the sensibility unique to Tokyo Geidai students, drawing smiles from visitors.
In Closing: The Power of Art That Tokyo University of the Arts' "Geisai" Brings Forth
Geisai goes beyond a mere school festival—it's like a comprehensive arts festival that pulls in the whole town. Simply by placing yourself in a space woven from music and fine arts, art comes to feel much closer—a precious opportunity indeed. We can't wait to see what expressions burst forth next year.
Geisai 2025 "Tamayura" Official Site
Finally
What did you think? We hope this article has helped you feel a little closer to art.
Under the concept of "enjoying art," +ART provides services that let you enjoy contemporary art even more—from planning and running exhibitions to selling work through our online shop.
Focusing on talented emerging artists, we carefully select and introduce works full of individuality! With a diverse range of art including paintings, we make it easy for even first-time buyers to shop with confidence.
And to help you discover the appeal of each work more deeply, our column shares useful information such as artist interviews, tips on displaying art, and pointers for buying.
We hope it becomes a chance for art to blend into daily life and enrich your everyday.
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