Matsuzakaya Nagoya, South Building 8th Floor, Matsuzakaya Hall
gallery UG is pleased to announce its participation in "ART 365," an exhibition to be held at Matsuzakaya Nagoya from Thursday, January 16, 2025, to Tuesday, January 21, 2025.
We will showcase works by three artists: Kunihiko NOHARA, Naoki NOMURA, and Saori HASEGAWA.
We are delighted to announce the solo exhibition "Life" by our exclusive artist, Nami OKADA.
Hosted by the "anonymous art project," this exhibition will simultaneously be held at two venues in the streets of Harajuku Jingumae and Omotesando, Tokyo.
The exhibition will also feature new works by the artist.
If you're in the area, please stop by and enjoy the display.
"I spend a great deal of time working on my art—moving my hands daily to create, venturing out to gather reference materials, or simply pondering deeply in my mind. These activities bring me moments of joy and sorrow, and I continue to walk through life alongside my art, always thinking of what lies ahead.
It may be only recently that I realized my creations are not separate objects but an extension of myself.
While I initially worked with the theme of accumulated memories, my focus naturally shifted to the concept of void (ensō), reflecting the cycles of seasons I experience, the passage of time, and the interplay between things that change and those that remain constant. Through this theme, I express the flow of time in different ways.
I explore how the passage of time can be represented within a single painting. Sometimes, I align it with the flow of paint, and at other times, I evoke the fleeting, shifting nature of memories by portraying them as faded photographs.
The landscapes I depict are layered fragments drawn from the drawers of my memory, lacking physical form.
Through these ambiguous landscapes, I hope to co-create with viewers a shared mental landscape that stirs distant personal memories."
-Nami OKADA
・Exhibition Details
【Zero Base Jingumae】
Exhibition Period
Tuesday, January 14, 2025 – Monday, January 27, 2025
10:00 AM – 8:00 PM
【Venue】
Zero Base Jingumae
6-4-1 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo (Jingumae Intersection)
【anonymous bldg.】
Exhibition Period
Tuesday, January 14, 2025 – Thursday, February 20, 2025
【Venue】
anonymous bldg. (formerly Aoyama Face Building)
5-1-25 Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Please note that the building's interior is not accessible.
The exhibition can be viewed from the sidewalk.
It is also illuminated at night for viewing.
Admission is free, and photography is allowed.
We are pleased to announce that gallery UG Osaka Umeda will be holding Shoichi OKUMURA's solo exhibition "Synthetic Tropical" from Friday, January 3, 2025, to Tuesday, January 21, 2025.
This exhibition is a continuation of its earlier showing in Tennoz.
The theme of paradise has long been a central subject in East Asian art. Examples include the Pure Land in Buddhism, the immortal realms in Taoism, landscapes depicted in traditional ink paintings, and mandalas shown as expanded diagrams.
In contemporary times, the concept of "tropical" has joined this lineage. Unlike philosophical or religious notions of paradise, the "tropical" is an artificial image of paradise crafted by media and advertising. It represents a synthetic ideal shaped by modern influences.
"Synthetic Tropical" does not reflect the untamed natural world but instead portrays an artificial imitation of the tropics— a contemporary representation of paradise stripped of its rawness and wildness.
"Connecting artworks to people, connecting people to each other through art."
galleryUG are always there for our artists.
We will grow together with the artists and support them from production to promotion.
We aim to further enrich and expand the contemporary art scene by proposing the ideal way for galleries to be.
The motifs chosen by Nami OKADA for her artwork are places she has visited personally. Her artwork arouses feelings of déjà vu and of reaching across time in viewers, whose backgrounds all differ.
Each person forms a distinct impression of a given building or piece of scenery due to the differences in their memories and experiences. Such spaces thus possess a multitude of forms.
It is only when there is commonality in the interpretations of multiple viewers that a given piece of scenery takes on certain meaning.
OKADA brings life to One View by exploring the relationship between pieces of scenery that have taken on meaning due to the overlapping of such commonalities and pieces of scenery whose meaning has yet to take shape.
In moments when I feel like I’m in a place independent of my surroundings,
I sometimes feel like I’m in a different time and space.
The feeling is like clouds or smoke that change shape with no regard for time
that people have to live by, and it also feels like a space of my own.
To turn, various scenes that came up in my imagination from things I encountered.
To express freedom, time and desires that are on the verge of being discarded from memory.
That is what is important, in order for me to be me and for a person to be them self.
2F TERRADA ART COMPLEX Ⅱ, 1-32-8, Higashishinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo
8 minutes walk from Tennozu Isle Station on the Tokyo Waterfront Area Rapid Transit Rinkai Line(Exit B)
11 minutes walk from Tokyo Monorail Haneda Airport Line Tennozu Isle Station(Central Exit)
3F TERRADA ART COMPLEX Ⅱ, 1-32-8, Higashishinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo
8 minutes walk from Tennozu Isle Station on the Tokyo Waterfront Area Rapid Transit Rinkai Line(Exit B)
11 minutes walk from Tokyo Monorail Haneda Airport Line Tennozu Isle Station(Central Exit)
11F Daimaru Umeda Department Store
3-1-1, Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka
From JR Osaka Station from 1-minute walk/JR Kita-Shinchi Station a 6-minute walk
From Midosuji Line Umeda Station from 2-minute walk/Tanimachi Line Higashi-Umeda Station from 8-minute walk/Yotsubashi Line Nishi-Umeda Station a 4-minute walk
From Hankyu Umeda Station from 13-minute walk/Hanshin Umeda Station a 12-minute walk
This is a production studio for exclusive artists of gallery UG, which will open in 2020. It was built to approach and support artists from a long-term perspective.
