KH GALLERY

KH Gallery Ginza presents a new exhibition, “Susumu Notomi × Hiroko Koshino – The Blue, where everything began.” Notomi and Koshino crossed paths six years ago, when Koshino was exploring the city of Hagi in Yamaguchi Prefecture as a guest of NHK General TV’s show, “Tsurube’s Salute to Families.” At this land known for its tradition of ceramics, Koshino met devoted ceramic artist Notomi, whose works capture the various shades of the color, Blue. From a deep indigo-like blue to a faint blue reminiscent of whitecap waves, the variation in the composition of earth and glaze brings about a rich range of shades. Koshino was mesmerized by the beauty of Notomi’s blue. To Koshino, blue has always been a special color. The blue used in abstract paintings gave out a sense of deep spirituality, while blue also reminds one of the ocean, sky and universe: bodies transcending the existence of human beings.

For this exhibition, the years of exchange between Koshino and Notomi take solid form for the first time since their encounter, which all began with the color, Blue. Notomi recalls his production period as, “the first experience ever, where I felt like something other than my mind was eagerly moving my body to produce creations.” Notomi will release ceramic works that, according to the artist himself, have a different touch from his typical works. On the other hand, Koshino will showcase her signature abstract paintings created under the theme of Blue. Her acrylic paintings trigger the image of the translucence of glazing and the fine texture of ceramics. Surrounded by an array of works oriented against a white space, one is sure to find oneself immersed in a calm moment of beauty. The Gallery invites you to witness the dialogue of “blue” between the two artists, underlined with the memories of the starting point where everything began.

KH Gallery Ginza will host, “Hiroko Koshino, The Sources of Creative Inspiration” to introduce a multispectral view of the creations, life, and “Sumi Ink” of Koshino, who draws on the beauty of Japan as the source of her creative inspiration. The “Sumi Ink” series, which Koshino has worked on with her unique sensitivity since about 15 years ago, form the foundations of her creations. In between the Sumi ink and blank spaces lie the deeply rooted spirits of Japanese culture. From the powerful masterpieces of the early days to the recent works where gold, silver and Sumi ink overlap, the ever-transitioning artworks vividly capture the beauty of Japan sought by Koshino at each moment.

KH Gallery Ashiya, reconstructed from Koshino’s former residence designed by Tadao Ando, sits in a nature rich environment in Ashiya city of Hyogo prefecture. Longing to obtain a “physical experience and understanding of the four seasons of Japan”, Koshino spent some 30 years of her life in the natural setting. Koshino continues to tackle masterpieces at Semper, her nearby studio filled with natural light. For Koshino, life in Ashiya serves as the source of not only her creative inspiration, but also the aesthetic senses of the Japanese people which she seeks to pursue through her works.

Signature works including Sumi ink based art works and calligraphies will be on display in this exhibition under the concept of Koshino’s interpretation of “Japanese sensibilities.” KH Gallery Ginza will also explore a new form of presentation through its first-ever exhibition of slides showing Koshino’s lively production process, as well as Tadao Ando’s sketches and architectural scale models of Koshino’s residence in Ashiya. We invite you to come experience Koshino’s beloved atmosphere of Ashiya, the source of creative inspiration seeping through every corner of the gallery as if to transport visitors to the artist’s actual production environment.

The exhibition, Hiroko Koshino, the Echoes of Summer will be held at KH Gallery Ginza. The power of plants and water streams, which leaves us with a refreshing and pure sense, have repeatedly appeared as Koshino’s themes. As evidenced by her decision to set her studio in a nature-rich environment, Koshino’s perception of nature is one that is replete with affection. Living a slow life away from the hustle and bustle of urban life, surrounded by nature and gazing at the change of trees are elements vital to Koshino’s creative endeavors. Koshino’s adoration of nature is abundantly visible in her artworks.

This exhibition showcases a myriad of creations including a lotus-motif Sumi ink masterpiece from about a decade ago, and Koshino’s latest work, a serene oil painting exploring the image of trees and water surfaces. The nature themed masterpieces bring about an elegant charm that is reminiscent of the purifying echoes of water.

A world portrayed mainly by Sumi ink and whitespace, black and white are also linked to the traditional oriental view of nature represented by ink paintings and the subtle, hidden but profound beauty, which have continued to inspire Koshino from her earliest works. Seemingly old, but new. The mythical paintings will invite you to a world of eternal beauty.

Serenity sets the background for the whispers of water and rustles of the woods. Take a moment to surround yourself with the cooling echoes which makes the heat of the outside world feel distant.

KH Gallery Ginza will host, “Tsurutaro Kataoka, Hiroko Koshino, and Tsunahisa Ogino -All Things In Nature-“.

While known for his career as an actor who gained popularity through variety shows, Kataoka has also taken painting as a serious part of his life. His artworks display his ability to capture the world from a perspective developed from his broad background. In particular, paintings conveying the warmth with which Kataoka views nature, along with the richness of color, are beloved by people of all ages.

Fashion designer Koshino is also a painter who brings her sense of beauty to work in her paintings. For her, the natural progression of the four seasons is the source of all creativity. The vitality of nature is one of the themes she has addressed, and will continue to address throughout her life. Produced from the two painters with a borderless profession, Kataoka and Koshino’s works balance diverseness with a confidence in identity.

This exhibition will also be the celebrated first unveiling of Tsunahisa Ogino’s works. Launching his career as a professional painter at the recommendation of his father, Kataoka, Ogino has been branching out his means of expression from music to painting. The symbolic world of fantasy continues to develop with a synergistic mix of music and art.

This exhibition brings the worldviews of three boundaryless artists under one roof. Kataoka will display unreleased works while Koshino picks up pieces mostly from her new series, and Ogino, the long-awaited collection of works that he had stocked up. We invite you to come explore the grand story developed around the theme, “The Universe,” where genuine quality produced by established artists Kataoka and Koshino is accented with the fresh, youthful sensibilities of Ogino.

KH Gallery Ginza presents the Kazumi Kurigami x Hiroko Koshino collaboration exhibit. Kurigami has paved the way for photographic expression, experimenting with everything from ad photography to graphic art and film. Tirelessly challenging the limits of photography, Kurigami communicates the beauty of reality through his works which depict the physical and emotional shifts of Kurigami himself. The all-new pieces displayed in this exhibition apply solarization, a technique that inverts photos’ color scales and gives one a glimpse of an alternate, surreal world. Alongside fashion design, Koshino has long pursued art through the form of painting. The unpredictable and fluid nature of oil painting especially arouses Koshino’s curiosity. For this exhibition, Koshino experiments with her new technique of inversing the tone of black oil strokes drawn on a blank canvas while allowing intentional moments of imbalance. The artworks emerging from the crossing of instinct and the flash of moment are in fact, a sheer reality occurring right in front of one’s eyes. The innate beauty residing in the transience of such artwork, Koshino believes, is a sensuality shared by the beauty of charcoal and blank space or photography.

Kurigami’s photos and Koshino’s paintings will be housed inside a large room with high ceilings and no extra decorations to allow viewers to sharpen their senses and explore the true nature of the two-dimensional stoically designed pieces. Let the pieces capturing the gaze of the two artists take over your senses as your imagination wisps you away to a world spreading endlessly with beauty.

KH Gallery Ginza presents a special collaboration between Keizo Matsui and Hiroko Koshino in the exhibition “Dreams Folded Inside – Transition into ART”. Koshino and Matsui first met in the 1980s, when the HIROKO KOSHINO brand began its expansion overseas. For the next several years until 2001, Matsui designed an array of press materials for the brand. The only instructions Koshino had ever given to Matsui was to “make something interesting”; everything else, she had left up to him. The mutual trust, passion for creation and the “dream” to bring joy to their audience were the ingredients of creative works such as the Paris Fashion Week invitation featuring a captivating pop-up design that went from flat to 3D. Design was never a sufficient field for the two artists, who always aspired to challenge the limits of “ART”. Matsui’s artwork combining “pottery and glass” which finally made shape after 30 years of thought, trial and error represents his aptitude for challenging physical obstacles through craftsmanship. In the same way, Koshino’s paintings also go against the grain with canvases of plaster, cardboard and other unique textures that stir imagination. Bringing the two artists together for the first time in almost 15 years, this exhibit displays works including Matsui’s past designs for the HIROKO KOSHINO brand, his all-new 3D pieces and Koshino’s masterpiece paintings. The exhibit surveys the changing pieces to discover the fundamental spirit of “ART” at their root.

Two artists inspiring “dreams” through design. This time, the perspective is shifted to the “dreams” that lie within the artists themselves to give birth to a fresh sense of creativity.

KH Gallery Ginza will be hosting a first anniversary retrospective of artist Kuniyoshi Kaneko, entitled “Kuniyoshi Kaneko x Hiroko Koshino: The Style Found Between -Neko and Hiroko-”. Kaneko’s unique style of portraiture depicted life by walking the fine lines between male and female, light and dark, holy and evil, beautiful and grotesque, and so on. Painted just prior to his death, the pieces displayed in this exhibition surround the everyday theme of “people” as seen through Kaneko’s unwavering and seemingly prescient perspective. For Koshino, this exhibit marks her first displaying of fashion sketches in the KH Gallery. Fashion sketches serve as the base of fashion design, and one might say that such art is the most familiar for Koshino. Like a vivid blueprint drawn in pen and charcoal that foretells of fashion yet to come and the people who will wear it in the future, the exhibition features artwork displayed in Kaneko’s first solo 1967 exhibition, which now remains in Koshino’s possession. The exhibition will also display oil paintings and other artwork from various periods in Kaneko’s life, alongside the furniture and easel he used to create countless works of art with his keen eye for beauty. Displayed beside these works are Koshino’s colorful fashion sketches, mingling and blending in to Kaneko’s room as if they were one of his collections. Knowing each other for over 50 years, Kaneko and Koshino examined “people” from their own unique points of view. Their timeless styles finally converge with this exhibition.

Please enjoy a look into the new story woven by the creativity of these two rare expressers, who referred to each other as “Neko” and “Hiroko”.

KH Gallery Ginza would like to announce a new feature exhibition entitled “Hiroko Koshino Red Impulse”.

Among Koshino’s diverse paintings, this collection brings together works featuring the most eye-catching color, red. Powerful lines drawn out by plastering, staining and dripping paint. Over the years, Koshino has tackled “red” art with all her heart, soul and might. In each piece, you can sense a vitality that exceeds the boundaries of color. “Red” does not only represent strong emotion but also symbolizes the sun or fire; it reaches out to awaken one’s primordial instincts. It is the color to which Koshino has turned in order to depict this untamable impulse experienced by all living things.

This exhibition features a selection of red works created over the past five years. It includes a large-scale abstract piece fiercely splashed with paint which was drawn immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake, as well as an oil painting symbolically depicting the hands of those praying for peace, inspired by the Myanmar democratic movement leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Other works such as an extravagant flower made using relief pattern, or a bird fluttering for freedom are also part of the grand collection. This exhibition challenges decrypting Koshino’s message from a new angle by bringing together the “reds” selected from different years.

These works of “red”, the color of the struggle for creation, ask viewers what it means to “live”. Art is a testament to the life of the expresser, Hiroko Koshino, and its energy will continue to give courage to others for years to come. Please enjoy near-octogenarian Koshino’s fiery and alluring exhibition at KH Gallery Ginza.

KH Gallery Ginza celebrates the start of 2016 with the special exhibition, Hiroko Koshino GOLD & SILVER “The New Light”.

Brilliant colors that embody radiance itself. Associated with fortune since long ago, gold and silver are timeless and majestic colors that have captivated the hearts of people for ages.

Koshino, too, fell in love with the beauty of gold and silver. Upholding the nobility of these two colors, which also possess special importance in traditional Japanese art, Koshino blends classic elements with a modern sense ad libitum to explore new aesthetic styles.

The meticulously created artwork, made with eyes fixed on the glow of gold and silver as if following each fine flicker of light, has a divine sense of character that expand beyond materiality.

The exhibition, surrounding the theme of gold and silver, features pieces that will appear in KH Gallery Ginza for the first time ever. Works range from story-telling pieces depicting the motif of “Utopia” to a mix of gold and other motifs to weave out modern series like Sumi Ink & Gold and Flower & Gold. Many works in the exhibit have familiar names that allow viewers to feel the powerful devotion that Koshino has put into each creation.

Koshino’s tireless passion for beauty clears the shrouding dark clouds with the exhilarating brightness of gold and silver, as if celebrating the start of 2016. Koshino invites you to the luminous world that radiates with the light of gold and silver as it carries a wish of a successful and happy year for all.

This time, KH Gallery Ginza brings together jewelry designer Akio Mori and fashion designer Hiroko Koshino in the exhibition “The Beauty -Inspiration, Sparkle and Brilliance-“, where “beauty” perused by each designer converges from a new perspective.

“Beauty” housed in a small world has been Akio Mori’s consistent theme over 48 years. Since the Paris Exposition where he made his fateful encounter with western-motif accessories incorporating traditional Japanese craftsmanship, the renowned jewelry designer has continued to produce one-of-a-kind masterpieces where oriental beauty and western beauty co-exist. Akio Mori sees the essence of design in capturing inspirations in one’s daily life. His novel accessories which allow for whitespace drawing out the individuality of each wearer have fascinated so many women of the world. On the other hand, Hiroko Koshino has been active in the fashion business for more than 50 years. In her peruse for a wide range of “Beauty”, she is another artist who draws inspiration from the culture and splendid nature of Japan. In this exhibition, visitors will find themselves amidst a dazzling setting decorated with Hiroko Koshino’s carefully selected dresses which are themselves, the canvas of Akio Mori’s forest-motif jewels. For Hiroko Koshino, clothing is the core of her creation. The bold approach of re-defining such a central piece of creation as a background canvas and overlaying the elegantly-shaped surface with forest-motif accessories is not only a novel challenge for Hiroko Koshino, but is also to draw the attention of the visitors.

When two individualities meet for synergy, an utterly new brilliance of “Beauty” comes to life. The gallery invites you to come experience the fresh sparkle of inspirations.