Born 1970 in Aichi. Graduated 1992 from the Department of Japanese Painting, Aichi University of the Arts. Sugioto’s paintings are characterized by their delicate colors and shapes, rhythmically placed, and simple motifs the likes of tiny houses, sky, and boats. His 2016 solo outing “particles and release” at Toyota Municipal Museum of Art saw him collaborate with architect Jun Aoki to configure the exhibition space, and for his first solo show at a Tokyo museum, “module or lacuna” in 2017, in response to the gallery space of the Kunio Maekawa-designed Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, he unveiled the 15-meter-long painting module. He undertook exhibition design for “Omni-Sculptures - The Scene of Emergence” at Musashino Art University Museum in 2021. Recipient of the 68th (2017) Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Geijutsu Sensho art award.

Architect. Born 1972 in Nagano Prefecture. After earning his MArch at Tokyo University the Arts, and working with Jun Aoki & Associates, he established Ryuji Nakamura & Associates in 2004. Major works include Hechima (Collection The Museum of Fine Art, Houston, 2010 / San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2012), JINS Kyoto Teramachi-dori (2016), Kobe City Hall Citizens’ Lobby (2017), “MA nature” (2021); and with Shiseido, exhibition space design for “Beauty Crossing Ginza: Ginza + La Mode + Shiseido” (Shiseido Gallery, 2016) and interior design for Shiseido Beauty Square (Harajuku, 2020). Group show participations include “Where is Architecture? Seven installations by Japanese architects” (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 2010) and “Anti-gravity” (Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, 2013). Recipient of the 6th Kyoto Architectural Award (2018) and the 32th JIA Rookie of the Year Award (2020) among other honors.

Artist duo consisting of Yoshihisa Tanaka and Ryuta Iida. Taking portraits, roadside trees, animals and water, as well as image data and recorded footage found on the internet as their source material, they have continued to develop their oeuvre of three-dimensional works created by carving into stacks of hundreds of photographs shot in rapid succession, the result of which are images that appear to distort even the very time axis of the subjects themselves. Such works have consistently engaged in an attempt to reveal the multilayered manner of existence harbored within organic entities, which often tend to be overlooked in the context of our day-to-day lives. Major exhibitions include “Interview, Portrait, House and Room” at the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea (2017) and “Promenade” at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2015). Recipients of the VOCA Prize in 2020.

Born 1981 in Okinawa. Graduated from The City University of New York in 2005. Major solo exhibitions include “In Order of Appearance” (miyagiya, 2021), “How Many Nights” (Gallery Koyanagi, 2017), and “American Boyfriend: The Bodies of Water” (Kyoto City University of the Arts Gallery @KCUA, 2014). His “American Boyfriend” project, launched in 2012, explores via artworks and talk events the relationship between an Okinawan man and American man falling in love in Okinawa. His works to date on subjects including his own identity, his native Okinawa, and American culture have taken the form of not only photographs and works on video but also novels.

Born 1974 in Kyoto. BFA in sculpture from Kyoto University of Art and Design; MFA in Intermedia Art from Tokyo University of the Arts. Miyanaga participated in the 3rd Shiseido Art Egg program. She spent a year in Edinburgh, Scotland on the 2007 Japanese Government Overseas Study Programme for Artists, and in 2011 winning the 22nd Gotoh Memorial Foundation emerging artist prize granted her a sojourn in the US and Latin America. Miyanaga has garnered attention with works that visualize the passage of time through traces left from everyday objects cast out of naphthalene and installations formed of crystallized salt. Recent solo exhibitions include “Utakata no Kasane” (The Museum of Kyoto, 2020) and “Rowing Style” (Takamatsu Art Museum, 2019). She is the first Tsubaki-kai member to have also taken part in Shiseido Art Egg.

Artist collective presenting works that endeavor to offer an immersive insight into the uncertainties of the real world. For [mé] the likes of technique and genre are of less importance than situation and path followed around the exhibition, including elements such as the gallery space, and audience. Their approach to the creative process is one of teamwork that utilizes the individual characteristics of the current principle members (artist Haruka Kojin, director Kenji Minamigawa, and illustrator Hirofumi Masui), combined with the exploration of relationships that will enhance ideas, decision-making, the refining of partnerships in bringing the work to fruition, and a shared creative consciousness at a spiritual level. Their solo shows including “Unreliable Reality – The Where of This World” (Shiseido Gallery, 2014) and “Obviously no one can make heads nor tails” (Chiba City Museum of Art, 2019), participation in the Saitama Triennale 2016, and “masayume” project, Tokyo Tokyo FESTIVAL Special 13 (2019-21) have drawn significant public interest.

All Photos by Ken Kato