Yuki Mashimo “Chirinuruwo”

SHIKISAISHA is pleased to present Chirinuruwo, a solo exhibition by Yuki Mashimo.

Working within a restrained palette of black and white, Mashimo creates fantastical worlds in which flowers, moths, and ornamental patterns seem to quietly stir through meticulous linework and delicate gradations of ink.

Using a mapping pen commonly associated with manga illustration techniques, she incorporates compositions and decorative sensibilities reminiscent of traditional Japanese painting, developing a distinctive visual language where delicacy and eeriness coexist.

Since her graduation project at university, Mashimo has continuously pursued an artistic practice using only black ink, eliminating color in order to push beyond the perceived limits of her own expression.

Her densely layered surfaces, composed of countless lines, evoke both ornamentation and vitality while simultaneously carrying an atmosphere of quiet emptiness. Crossing between the aesthetics of Japanese painting and the visual sensibilities of manga drawing, her works reveal an underlying affinity between the classical and the contemporary within Japanese culture.

This exhibition, Mashimo’s first at SHIKISAISHA, will present approximately ten works, including four new paintings, under the title Chirinuruwo. We warmly invite viewers to experience the fleeting resonance of beauty at the very moment it reaches its fullest intensity and begins to fall away.

Artist Statement

Though colors may bloom, they inevitably scatter.

The black lines drawn from the pen tip become obsessive ornamentation, setting moth wings trembling and laying bare the buds of flowers. The denser these intricate lines accumulate, the more paradoxically a profound sense of emptiness begins to emerge.

Since ancient times, the Japanese have called this inevitable decay mujō — impermanence — and within it have found true beauty.

I would be honored if viewers could sense the lingering echo of the instant when beauty reaches its peak and quietly falls away.

— Yuki Mashimo

Yukino Mashimo was born in Gunma, Japan in 1984 and graduated from the Painting Department of Tokyo Zokei University in 2007.
Using motifs associated with traditional Japanese painting — including flowers, moths, and ornamental patterns — Mashimo creates highly detailed monochrome works in black ink using manga drawing pens. Within a restrained palette of black and white, her intricate lines and delicate gradations evoke a distinctive world that is at once decorative, unsettling, and vividly alive.
Mashimo gained early recognition through “project N 35” at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery in 2008 and was selected for the VOCA Exhibition in 2010. She has held solo exhibitions at venues including Yuka Sasahara Gallery, Takasaki Museum of Art, and Hara Museum ARC Café d’Art. In 2022, she received the Corporate Mecenat Gunma Arts and Culture Encouragement Award.