AFAF 2026｜Artwork Checklist

Kisho Kakutani (b. 1993, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan) completed his PhD in Japanese Painting at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2022. Using everyday snapshots taken with his smartphone as source material, he creates paintings that explore the ambiguity of memory and visual perception. In series such as Frosted Window and Curtain, Kakutani deliberately obscures parts of the image with visual noise resembling frosted glass or curtains, inviting viewers to complete what is unseen through their own memories and imagination. His practice reconsiders the act of seeing in an age of visual overload, positioning painting as a device through which new images can emerge in the viewer’s mind.

Yuji Kanamaru explores time and life through animal motifs, particularly turtles and ancient fish. Drawing on the visual language of Nihonga, he builds textured surfaces from fabric, fragments of English-language newspapers and deliberate cracks, adding layers of vivid yet soft colour. Memories of a childhood spent in the Middle East inform the dry atmosphere, cityscapes and curious creatures that appear in his work. For Kanamaru, animals offer a way to give form to inner thoughts and establish a dialogue with the viewer. His sculptural practice extends these concerns into physical space, bringing the colours and forms developed in his paintings into three-dimensional animal figures.

Mayuno Kobayashi works with the techniques of Nihonga, giving the shifting emotions and memories of everyday life the forms of animals and imaginary creatures. Her paintings bring together materials including Tosa washi paper, mineral pigments, silver leaf and silver pigment. Their inhabitants range from familiar animals to monsters, often appearing as humorous characters that carry human feelings and inner conflicts. Personal memories and the cultural influences she has absorbed inform these figures and their surroundings. Through this combination of materials and imagery, Kobayashi develops a pictorial world in which familiarity and strangeness coexist, finding tangible forms for experiences that remain difficult to define.

Yu Seto makes sculptures of wild animals informed by an ongoing interest in natural science. Working primarily in terracotta, he leaves the movement of his fingers and the marks of modelling visible on the surface. These traces of touch contribute to the animals’ physical presence, movement and tension. In his life-size works, Seto attends both to the form of the animal and to the atmosphere surrounding it. This direct encounter between hand, clay and subject underpins his exploration of living structures and the relationship between humans and the natural world. His practice also encompasses drawing, public sculpture and collaborations in fashion and design.

Mitsuko Taira creates painted wood sculptures that evoke a quiet, poetic world through the forms of living creatures. Drawing on the Bible, poetry, and folktales, she gives sculptural form to moments from imagined narratives. Personal experience and memory also inform her attention to animals: delicate coloring suggests the softness of fur and the warmth of a body, while details such as the shadows of eyelashes convey an intimate sense of care. Situated between everyday life and storytelling, these figures embody stillness and purity. Her practice invites reflection on forms of sensitivity and beauty that can be overlooked in contemporary human life.

Shoko Mihira creates glass monsters shaped by everyday events, personal encounters and the emotions they leave behind. Working with borosilicate glass, Mihira melts and forms tubes in a burner flame, sometimes enclosing liquids or threads within the resulting figures. These materials make inner experiences visible, while the transmission and refraction of light contribute to each sculpture’s changing appearance. Humorous yet enigmatic, the monsters carry individual stories rooted in things the artist has experienced, witnessed or heard. Mihira describes making them as a way of recording what happened and how it felt. Each work becomes a personal memory that can also open a point of recognition or connection with others.