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UPCOMING EXHIBITION
SPRING GROUP SHOW
KEIKO ARAI, HIROYOSHI ASAKA, KIYOSHI HAMADA, YASUKO HASUMURA, MOEKO MAEDA, NORIHIKO SAITO,
KENTA TAKAHASHI, SHIGEMI YASUHARA
March 19 - May 9, 2026
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 19, 6-8pm
As part of Asia Week, March 19 - 27, 2026
Kiyoshi Hamada, Sand Dancing in the Sky in Spring, 2005, Oil on paper (byōbu screen, four panels),
56.9 x 110.2 in (144.5 x 280 cm)
SEIZAN Gallery is pleased to present Spring Group Show, on view from March 19 through May 9, 2026. The exhibition features nine distinguished artists from Japan, each rooted in the traditions of their respective mediums and pushing those traditions
forward to engage with contemporary questions of materiality and perception.
The exhibition opens as part of Asia Art Week, March 19–27, 2026.
Keiko Arai, Zone B, 2025, Sumi ink on washi paper mounted on wood panel, 38.2 x 41.3 x 1.4 in (97 x 105 x 3.5 cm)
Keiko Arai reshapes sumi ink painting, a practice rooted over a thousand years in East Asian art history. While traditional sumi ink art is often defined by bold brushstrokes that express spontaneity and momentum, Arai takes a contrasting approach: she first saturates the entire washi paper with sumi ink and an abundance of water, then masks selected areas using cutouts of various materials. The resulting forms reveal organic contours with rich, unpredictable textures. Working with chance and controlled intervention, Arai creates ink fields that explore the expressive possibilities of monochromatic abstraction.
Hiroyoshi Asaka, KASHOUMON - The Box of Truth -2, 2023, Marble, Styrofoam, 7.1 x 13.8 x 11.8 in (18 x 35 x 30 cm)
Hiroyoshi Asaka carves marble into strikingly realistic replicas of white Styrofoam blocks. Working entirely by hand with self-modified tools, he achieves an astonishing level of detail and precision. Marble-carved Styrofoam box lids are playfully placed alongside actual Styrofoam boxes. A masterful artisan trained in marble sculpture, Asaka has deliberately chosen this disposable, everyday material as his subject — challenging conventional notions of materiality and representation. His use of marble, a medium at the center of Western sculptural tradition for centuries, raises provocative questions about value and artistic hierarchy.
Kiyoshi Hamada, Work 29-7-16, 2017, Oil on plywood, 15.9 x 10.9 in (40.5 x 27.8 cm)
Over an artistic career spanning nearly sixty years, Kiyoshi Hamada has pursued his own abstract expression while postwar Japanese art was at its height. One of his varied practices is defined by a rigorous, almost meditative process of layering and removing material. He builds up surfaces with acrylic paint, pencil, and marker, then cuts into or scrapes away the accumulated layers with a utility knife, revealing traces of what lies beneath "When we speak of 'landscape' (風景), I want to paint the 'wind' (風) part of it" Hamada states. The Japanese word for landscape, 風景 (fūkei), literally combines 風 ("wind") with 景 ("scene"). Hamada is playing on this: where most painters focus on the 景 – visible, static scene — he wants to capture the 風, invisible and atmospheric. As a preview of his first solo exhibition in the US this September, the group show presents Hamada's marvelous byō-bu, four-panel screen pieces, along with a painting.
Yasuko Hasumura, What Comes to Mind, 2025, Ink, washi on canvas, 35.8 x 25.7 x 1 in (91 x 65.2 x 2.5 cm)
Yasuko Hasumura creates abstract paintings using sumi ink and washi paper on canvas. Her ethereal yet powerful compositions capture light, darkness, and air with remarkable command. She describes her creative process as "dialogues with material". Exploring materials at once simple and complex, rooted in Japanese traditional art — sumi ink and washi paper — Hasumura developed a distinctive technique of layering feather-thin washi paper with brushstrokes of sumi ink on canvas. "It's a collaboration with sumi, water, and washi paper" she says. "I also collaborate with air. I don't force these elements onto my canvas. I let them be. I wait. They start forming shapes, then I ask, what are we doing next? They don't always answer me right away. I wait again".
Moeko Maeda, 心 - 開 (Heart - Open), 2024, Salt, gum arabic, pigments, acrylic paint, earth, herb, frankincense resin on wood panel,
16 x 16 x 2 in (40.6 x 40.6 x 5.1 cm)
Moeko Maeda incorporates a range of symbolic, organic substances into her work — salt, herbs, natural pigments, wax, and soil. She typically begins each piece by inscribing Chinese characters that surface during meditation onto a wood panel, then applies carefully prepared layers of these substances over the writing. Through months of repeated application, the works gradually take form as sculptural paintings. Intricate textures emerge from crystallized salts, swirled with natural pigments or settled into pure fields of white. A dedicated researcher of spiritual practices and Eastern histories, Maeda approaches art-making as an intimate, ritualistic process. The resulting works feel at once ephemeral and enduring, deeply personal and quietly universal.
Norihiko Saito, WL-013, 2023. Natural mineral pigment, pigment, metal paint on silk mounted on wood panel,
45.9 x 31.6 in (116.7 x 80.3 cm)
Norihiko Saito‘s paintings are rooted in the Nihonga tradition, working with natural mineral pigments and classical techniques on washi paper while engaging with landscape themes drawn from the sansui (mountain-and-water) lineage that has shaped East Asian painting for centuries. Saito pursues what might be called an "inner nature" layering brushstroke upon brushstroke until the pigment settles as if finding its rightful place. Much as Ike no Taiga and Yosa Buson once attempted, Saito's quietly breathing brushstrokes allow images rooted in natural scenery to proliferate as they are painted — their accumulated traces rising hazily into another, larger kei (景), a scene that emerges as if from a distance. Through this blend of inherited tradition and contemporary sensitivity, Saito occupies an important place in the ongoing evolution of Japanese painting.
Kenta Takahashi, Parts of the city, 2025, Natural mineral pigment, metallic powder, art glue, animal glue on wooden panel,
45.9 x 28.6 x 1.2 in (116.7 x 72.7 x 3 cm)
Kenta Takahashi is a radical forerunner of the Nihonga tradition. His signature series of diamond steel plates recreates this ubiquitous industrial material found on streets and construction sites, employing the traditional moriage (raised relief) technique alongside metal leafing to render an object of pure utility with the reverence and precision of classical painting. Where artists like Takashi Murakami — who earned his doctoral degree in Nihonga at Tokyo University of the Arts — ultimately left the centuries-old medium behind, Takahashi embraces it head-on, pursuing the question "What makes it Nihonga?" as a means of expanding and redefining this enduring artistic category. By transplanting inherited craft onto decidedly contemporary subject matter, he collapses the distance between the sacred and the mundane, between the atelier and the street.
Taro Tabuchi, Round Rod, 2025, Ceramic, 30.7 x 60.2 x 1.2 in (78 x 153 x 3 cm)
Taro Tabuchi, a pioneer of contemporary Japanese ceramics, has devoted nearly thirty years to mastering "Yohen Hakuji (窯変白磁)"; Yohen refers to kiln mutation — unpredicted patterns that emerge during the firing process — while hakuji denotes white porcelain made from mineral-based clay, a tradition originating in sixth-century China. Firing is central to his creative process: in 2007, the artist hand-built an anagama (single-chamber kiln) at his studio in the mountains of Takamatsu, committing himself to a primitive, labor-intensive method that begins with lumbering from a local forest and preparing logs by hand. Each firing takes roughly one hundred hours straight. Dramatic images emerge on the pure white surface as a result — cracks, blushes, and abstract patterns at once powerful and tranquil. Departing from the utilitarian origins of ceramics, Tabuchi explores new possibilities for a craft with over a thousand years of history, revealing that restraint and volatility can inhabit the same object.
Shigemi Yasuhara, Forest After Rain, 2025, Natural mineral pigments, gofun, gold leaf, gold paint, and ink on washi paper (gampi)
mounted on wood panel, 38.2 x 57.1 x 1.2 in (97 x 145 x 3 cm)
Shigemi Yasuhara is a direct successor of the tradition of Nihonga. Depicting forest scenery in vivid hues of lapis lazuli and malachite pigment with subtle touches of gold leaf, Yasuhara draws deeply from the wall and screen paintings of the Momoyama period (late sixteenth century) — the monumental fusuma-e by Hasegawa Tōhaku, Kaihō Yūshō, and the Kanō school. These works, conceived as one with the architecture they inhabit, use composition, negative space, and the placement of forms to transform a room — evoking expansiveness, stillness, or dynamic energy. Yasuhara is guided by this same awareness: composing paintings that become inseparable from their surroundings, offering the viewer a sense of boundless space or the quiet sensation of being held within the work.
Keiko Arai (荒井恵子, b. 1963, Tokyo, Japan) is a self-taught ink painter who has exhibited prolifically in Japan, France, and Korea. Her recent solo presentations include exhibitions at SEIZAN Gallery New York, the Nara Prefectural Museum of Art Gallery, Chiba City Museum, and Funabashi Andersen Park/Children's Museum of Art. Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions such as the 30th International TANNAN ART Festival, Tobinodai Shell Midden Museum, Centre culturel Les Fosses d'enfer (Saint-Rémy-sur-Orne, France), the Museum of Modern Art in Saitama, and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. Arai has completed several public commissions, including fusuma-e (sliding door paintings) for Okamoto Shrine and Otaki Shrine in Fukui, and Hōjōji Temple in Chiba, as well as for the Udatsu Paper and Craft Museum in Fukui. Deeply committed to the traditional craft of sumi ink, Arai regularly leads workshops to promote its practice and works closely with a community of sumi ink craftsmen in Nara. She lives and works in Chiba, Japan.
Hiroyoshi Asaka (浅香弘能, b. 1977, Osaka, Japan) grew up learning the craft of sword making. While studying sculpture at Kyoto University of the Arts, he chose marble as his sole material. Asaka's work has been showcased at SEIZAN Gallery Tokyo and New York, Chicago Expo, Art Miami, Basel VOLTA, Art Stage Singapore, Asahido Shinsaibashiten (Osaka), and Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi (Tokyo), among others. His work is included in public collections such as Osaka City and Oharayama Shrine (Fukuoka), as well as in important private collections including Fujitsu Karuizawasō. He lives and works in Osaka, Japan.
Kiyoshi Hamada (浜田浄, b. 1937, Kochi, Japan) is a leading figure in postwar Japanese contemporary art whose practice spans over six decades of painting, printmaking, and drawing. After receiving his BFA in oil painting from Tama Art University in 1961, Hamada began exhibiting in Tokyo in the mid-1960s and quickly established himself through a sustained investigation of surface, layering, and material process. Hamada has exhibited extensively in Japan and internationally, including at the Kraków International Print Biennial, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Miami Graphic Arts Biennale, and has received numerous awards, among them the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art Award and the Bridgestone Museum of Art Prize. His work is held in major public collections worldwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and the Artizon Museum. He lives and works in Tokyo.
Yasuko Hasumura (蓮村泰子, b. 1958, Hokkaido, Japan) studied art and contemporary art theory at Tama Art University in Tokyo. After graduating, she followed a path still widely expected of women inJapan at the time: marriage, homemaking, and motherhood — though she continued her artistic practice in a limited capacity throughout. It was during this period that she encountered Noh, a form of Japanese theater originating in the fourteenth century, describing the experience as "soul-trembling" — a turning point that led her to begin working with traditional materials such as sumi ink and washi paper. Hasumura's work has been exhibited across galleries and institutions internationally, including the solo presentation Air and the Void, a group exhibition Rock, Paper, Salt at SEIZAN Gallery New York, Japan Art Festival:Hasumura Yasuko Sumi no Sekai-ten at Salzburg Museum in Australia. A new solo presentation is scheduled for this November at SEIZAN Gallery New York.
Moeko Maeda (b. 1983, Hyogo, Japan) is an LA-based artist who makes paintings and performance pieces. While working as an assistant in the studio of Paul McCarthy, Maeda began creating performance pieces featuring a stoic character, involving her body. She expanded her practice to include work on canvas using water, salt, and other organic materials. Maeda's works have been included in numerous exhibitions, including at Speedy Gallery, Los Angeles, Chimento Contemporary, Los Angeles, LAVA Projects, Los Angeles, THREE, Los Angeles, and SCOPE Miami Beach, as well as Alexa Hoyer & Moeko Maeda at SEIZAN Gallery New York. She lives and works in Los Angeles.
Norihiko Saito (斎藤典彦, b. 1957, Kanagawa, Japan) completed the doctoral program at the Graduate School of Tokyo University of the Arts in 1985 and taught Nihonga at the university for many years. He held a research fellowship in the United Kingdom in 1995 through the Overseas Research Program of the Japanese Government Agency for Cultural Affairs and is now Professor Emeritus of Tokyo University of the Arts. Saito has exhibited widely, including at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the Zhejiang Art Museum in Hangzhou, the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, and the SOMPO Museum of Art. His awards include the Takashimaya Art Prize (2008) and the Excellence Award at the 10th Exhibition of the Yamatane Museum of Art Prize (1989). His work is held in public collections including the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the Yamatane Museum of Art, the Ohara Museum of Art, the Yokohama Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. He lives and works in Kanagawa.
Kenta Takahashi (高橋健太, b. 1996, Aichi, Japan) received his BFA in Nihonga from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2021 and is currently an MFA candidate in printmaking at the same institution. Takahashi has held solo exhibitions at SEIZAN Gallery Tokyo, Ginza Tsutaya Books Art Wall Gallery, and MEDEL GALLERY SHU, and has participated in group exhibitions internationally, including at SEIZAN Gallery New York, SCOPE Miami Beach, Art on Paper New York, and Art Taipei. His awards include the
Grand Prize at the Atom Art Award (2018), the Ataka Award and the Tawara Award from Tokyo University of the Arts, and an Honorable Mention from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (2024). He lives and works in Chiba.
Taro Tabuchi (田淵太郎, b. 1977, Takamatsu City, Kagawa, Japan) is a ceramic artist who graduated from Osaka University of Arts, Department of Crafts, Ceramic course in 2000. After teaching at a ceramic school for three years, Tabuchi established his own
studio in the mountains of Takamatsu City and in 2007 hand-built an anagama (single- chamber kiln) in Shioe-cho, Kagawa. Since then he has been devoted to exploring his unique style of "Yohen Hakuji" ceramics. Tabuchi has exhibited extensively in Japan and internationally, including at SEIZAN Gallery New York, Tomio Koyama Gallery Tokyo, Espace Culturel Bertin Poirée Paris, Mr. Kitly Gallery Melbourne, and SOFA New York. His awards include the Kagawa Prefecture Culture and Art Encouragement Award (2019), the Kagawa Prefecture Culture and Art Newcomer Award (2013), and the Excellence Award at the 21st Asahi Modern Craft Exhibition (2003). His work is held in public and private collections including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Takamatsu Art Museum, Shionoe Museum of Art, Ibaraki Ceramic Art Museum, and the Takahashi Collection. He lives and works in Kagawa.
Shigemi Yasuhara (安原成美, b. 1984, Saitama, Japan) is a Nihonga painter who received his BFA in Nihonga (2010), MFA in Conservation and Restoration of Japanese Painting (2012), and Ph.D. in Conservation and Restoration of Japanese Painting
(2016), all from Tokyo University of the Arts. Yasuhara has held solo exhibitions at Nihombashi Mitsukoshi, Nagoya Matsuzakaya, SEIZAN Gallery Tokyo, and Sendai Mitsukoshi, and has participated in group exhibitions at the Iwasaki Memorial Museum, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, The University Art Museum, SEIZAN Gallery New York, and in Lyon, France. His awards include the Grand Prize at The A.D. Works Group Nihonga Prize (2023), the Grand Prize at the Yamatane Museum of Art Nihonga Award (2019), the Nomura Art Award (2016), and the Hirayama Ikuo Culture and Art Scholarship (2016). He is the author of two publications on Nihonga technique. His work is held in the collections of the Yamatane Museum of Art, The University Art Museum at Tokyo University of the Arts, and Colección SOLO, Madrid. He lives and works in Saitama.
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