About “exhibition for “SYNESTHESIA” vol.4 ~A Synesthesia That Creates the Future~”
This exhibition is a project initiated by the artist neuronoa. Art born from its makers can enrich our sensibilities and offer us new values, yet these gifts are not always easy to perceive on the surface. The story and context behind how a work was made, the maker’s thoughts and character, the colors and stylistic preferences of the work itself, the techniques used — these vary from person to person, but we believe that by coming to “know” a work and its artist on these many layers, you can fully receive the gifts art has to offer.
At this exhibition, the works on display are, as a rule, available for purchase. Beyond that, we plan to share “artist interviews” and “artist introduction blogs” on social media for you to read, and to create opportunities to speak directly with the artists when they are present at the gallery — so you can enjoy art not just by looking, but by feeling.
We look forward to welcoming you all.
A Message from the Initiator
For this exhibition, we have gathered ten distinctive, up-and-coming artists with the aim of helping everyone who visits to update their sensibilities and cultivate new values through art. The word “SYNESTHESIA” in the exhibition title refers to the sensation of perceiving color in letters or sounds, or shape in taste or smell. We would be delighted if the diverse expressions woven together by these ten artists became an opportunity for you to encounter something within yourself.
neuronoa
Overview]
Event title: exhibition for “SYNESTHESIA” ~A Synesthesia That Creates the Future~
Dates: Monday, October 31 – Sunday, November 13, 2022, 10:00 - 21:00 (until 20:00 on the final day)
Venue: ＋ART GALLERY, Shibuya Scramble Square, Shops & Restaurants 14F (2-24-12 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0002)
Online Store: https://pls-art-shop.com/ (The works are available for purchase, and will also be sold online throughout the exhibition!)
Participating Artists: neuronoa｜buggy｜Kenichi Sugimoto｜Tomohiro Shimizu｜IKU→｜Kiyoo Ota｜Masaki Adachi｜Toworu Nakamura｜Moko Sawada ｜Jun Suzuki
[Artist Profiles]
neuronoa
After working as a creator of music, design, video and more while wandering through over 30 countries, neuronoa began creating art in earnest in 2021. Built around the concept of “the information society,” the artist creates abstract paintings using famous figures such as musicians and actors as motifs. By abstracting them to the point where their expressions can no longer be read, the work asks: what is “true information” in an information society? Active well beyond the boundaries of art, neuronoa is energetically involved in projects across many genres both in Japan and abroad. Out of a wish to keep the focus always on the work, the artist keeps nationality, gender, age, and face consistently undisclosed.
Selected exhibition history
Solo: 2022/11 Daikanyama Monkey Gallery (solo show)
Group: 2022/08 GEISAI at Tokyo Big Sight (Liquitex booth); 2022/10 SYNESTHESIA at Shibuya Scramble Square (neuronoa project)
Awards: 2022 Reijinsha Gates Art Competition, Selected
buggy
buggy is a painter who, wielding the two techniques of collage and acrylic painting, overlays images we know so well — celebrities and politicians who symbolize the era, corporate logos, and more — in provocative collages. Alongside creating numerous artworks for fashion magazines such as VOGUE JAPAN and Numero TOKYO, buggy collaborates with global brands like Marc by Marc Jacobs and Stella McCartney, and the artist’s original items have also won wide popularity — a practice that spans many fields.
・Selected exhibitions
Solo: 2021 “Portraits” WATOWA GALLERY, Tokyo; 2016 “ART SHOW” THE WELL, LOS ANGELES
Moko Sawada
Born in 1990 in Osaka, where she still lives and works.
Under the theme of “things that are made,” she paints, in oils, characters that incorporate the “glitches” of image files and 3D objects.
To explore the relationship between created beings and space, in recent years she has produced not only character paintings but also landscape paintings based on map apps.
・Selected exhibitions
Solo: 2022 “Escape and Reward” (Art Gallery Shirokane 6c / Tokyo)
Group: 2022 “Washin Art Exhibition” (GALLERY JO YANA / France); “Nijigen-ha” (Daikanyama Hillside Forum, N&A art SITE / Tokyo)
Art fairs: 2022 KIAF SEOUL (shown by Gallery Irritum Tokyo) (Korea); ART TAICHUNG (shown by 333Gallery) (Taiwan)
Kenichi Sugimoto
From Hokkaido. Artist and designer.
Graduate of Musashino Art University and Hosei University. Alongside design work since 2020, he began his artistic practice after publishing a picture book.
Under the concept “INSEPARABLE INSTINCT,” he expresses the instincts dormant within us by likening them to animals. The raw, boundless energy of our instincts in childhood gradually fades as we grow up. Yet there are moments when we suddenly become emotional, or act on impulse, driven by instinctive urges. He depicts these wild, inseparable instincts by fusing humans and animals.
Selected exhibition history
2022 “LEISURELY” ELOISE’s Cafe Tokyo Asakusa; “SOMETIMES...” Off The Record (Hong Kong)
Tomohiro Shimizu
Graduated in 2008 from the Department of Painting (Oil Painting), Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts.
Rather than concrete forms, I want to capture something like a “phenomenon.” When small fragments gather together, they somehow begin to look like a single whole.
And yet, the moment you look away, they may be scattered apart and vanish once more.
I want to record that fleeting “phenomenon,” if only for an instant.
Selected exhibition history
Solo: 2022 “negative／positive” (Tokyo / Hankyu Men’s Tokyo); 2016 “Wanderlust” (Taipei / pon ding)
Other: Cover art for “A Literary Stroll Through One’s Hometown: Iwate” (supervised by Hiroaki Sudo, Daiwa Shobo); cover art for “Fireworks in the Palm of My Hand” (Satoko Yamazaki, Tanka Kenkyu-sha)
IKU→
While working primarily in fashion, IKU→ sought freer forms of expression, threw themselves into making art, and moved to the United States. After signing with a gallery in New York and beginning their career as an artist, they held several exhibitions. Returning to Japan, they worked under the name khayah, and since 2020 have been active as IKU→.
I wanted to meet myself.
Yet precisely because I am myself, I cannot meet myself. I am aware that I am “me,” but what is the self, and why does it exist? Through the flow of fleeting moments shared with the living creatures connected to me, I come to notice myself. Drawing inspiration from daily emotions and lived experience, IKU→ contemplates life and death, and the place where the “face” exists within relationships to others and to oneself — expressing, and questioning, a variety of faces of the inner landscape.
Selected exhibition history
Solo: 2022 “Borderless” Hilltopia Art Square (Tokyo)
Group: The 1st Exhibition in New York / NY One Art Space
Other: 2021 took part in an auction; covered by NHK; key visual selected for “INVISIBLE ART IN PUBLIC”
Toworu Nakamura
Born in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. He began painting self-taught at the age of 30. Now based mainly in Tokyo, he also collaborates with apparel brands and provides graphics to companies. His signature lies in the fusion of abstraction and pop — blending these two elements on the canvas, quoting a sense of the street and familiar cartoon imagery to create works in a graphical style that is far more than merely pop.
Selected exhibition history
Art fairs: shown at Taipei Contemporary Art Salon 2020; selected for Independent Tokyo 2021
Group: “CORE9” at Hankyu Men’s Tokyo, Yurakucho; “EMOTION” at Ishikawa Gallery, Ginza
Other: Tagboat Special Prize; Jury Special Prize, the Tetsuji Shibayama Award
Kiyoo Ota
Graduate of Akita Prefectural Akita High School. Born in Aomori. Completed graduate studies at the Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo, and graduated from the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Kyoto University.
After studying architecture, he joined a foreign investment bank out of a desire to better society through economics. Having lived through the financial crisis, and wishing to create works that would remain forever even after his death, he set out on the path of art.
Using devices such as optical illusions, perspective, and moiré, he creates three-dimensional works that shatter preconceptions and become a trigger for viewers to suddenly notice something.
Selected exhibition history
Solo: 2022 “Structure” YUGEN Gallery; “Cubes” Gallery TK2
Group / Art fairs: 2022 “3331 Art Fair” 3331 Arts Chiyoda; “Art Fair Ginza” Ginza Mitsukoshi; “Dai Gendai Art Exhibition” Daimaru Tokyo
Media: 2022 “Art Collectors” Seikatsu no Tomo Sha; “ONBEAT”; “Before the Breakthrough: Artists of the Next Generation” BS Fuji; 2021 “Atarashii Kagi” Fuji TV
Masaki Adachi
Artist and architect, born in 1990 in Kanagawa Prefecture.
Part-time lecturer at Yomiuri College of Information Technology.
2014: Graduated from the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Kanto Gakuin University (Bachelor’s degree, Seki Kazuaki Laboratory). 2016: Completed the Architectural Design program at the Graduate School of Kyoto University of the Arts (Master of Fine Arts). Founded etude design.
After studying architecture in graduate school, he founded a design studio. Since 2019, he has produced and exhibited three-dimensional works using an abstract technique drawn from architectural model-making. He is also engaged in curating a wide range of projects that cross the boundaries of architecture, design and art.
Selected exhibition history
Awards: Independent Tokyo 2022 Jury Special Prize (Ryoko Kido Award) (KIDO press) (individual); 13th Daiwa House Competition, Grand Prize (individual)
Exhibitions: Independent Tokyo 2022 (tagboat); exhibition for “SYNESTHESIA” vol.2 (YOSEIDO GINZA)
Jun Suzuki
From Miyagi Prefecture.
Influenced by his father, a ceramic artist, he was exposed to a wide range of art from an early age. In 2014 he moved to Tokyo and began ballpoint-pen drawing — which he had done as a hobby — in earnest.
From 2020 he also took up acrylic painting, expressing life and death, love, and positive messages, with a sincere hope of forging a connection of hearts with his viewers and with the people who will live in the future.
Selected exhibitions
Solo: 2022 “INSIDE” Jun Suzuki Solo Exhibition (MEDEL GALLERY SHU, Tokyo); 2021 “Jun Suzuki Solo Exhibition” (gallery TOWED, Tokyo)
Group: 2022 “EMOTION” (Ishikawa Gallery, Tokyo); 2021 “independenttokyo2021” (Tokyo Port City Takeshiba, Tokyo)
Awards: 2020 100nin10, Selected
[Company Profile]
About plus art co.,ltd
At plus art co.,ltd, we believe in the power and influence latent in ART, and by adding “+ART” to all the things, matters and people in the world, we take on the challenge of solving social issues creatively. While building an ecosystem connecting creators with public institutions, companies and the city, we provide support for exhibitions and promotions.
Company name: plus art co.,ltd
Head office: Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001
Representative Director: Taku Nitta
Founded: September 2, 2020
Business: Planning, production, operation, management, sales, and import/export of works related to art and music — such as illustration, painting and design — and of related products and facilities
Website: https://pls-art.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plsart.inc/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/plsartcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/plsart_company
Press & Inquiries
[For press inquiries regarding this matter]
＋ART GALLERY Management Office, Public Relations
Tel: 070-3540-2511 Email: ml@pls-art.com
Shibuya Scramble Square
Website: https://www.shibuya-scramble-square.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shibuya_scramble_square
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SHIBUYA.SCRAMBLE.SQUARE/
