NEWS
Towa Takaya to Present Solo Exhibition "Descending to the Heights" at World Heritage Site Ninnaji Temple
OCTOBER 24, 2026— New works incorporating materials from Noto are presented in the Shiroshoin, with Suzu ware artist Tatsuma Nakayama joining as a guest artist —WHYNOT.TOKYO, an art project operated by Sora to Tsuchi Co., Ltd., will present The Kuro-shoin will host a simultaneous group exhibition, Towa Takaya (contemporary artist)Towa Takaya,Towa Takaya, Towa Takaya, Towa Takaya, Solo Exhibition | Since the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake, Towa Takaya has made repeated visits to Oku-Noto through WHYNOT.TOKYO’s initiatives supporting Suzu ware ceramicists, sustaining a dialogue with local artists and workshops. For this exhibition, Takaya presents new works that layer materials bearing the accumulated time of the land—earth and sand, ash from Suzu ware kilns, and minerals from Noto—with optically responsive materials, including polarizing pearlescent pigments and metallic pigments. Responding to the natural light entering the Shiro-shoin and to the viewer’s movement through the space, the works continually shift in appearance: one image emerges, dissolves, and gives way to another.The exhibition title, The particles and traces across the surfaces of the works momentarily summon images—mountains, valleys, currents of air, distant landscapes—that shift with the viewer’s position and the changing light. Through driftwood, irregularly shaped canvases, and works extending across the floor, the exhibition stages a paradox within the Shiro-shoin: a descent into matter can widen the field of perception.Guest artist Tatsuma Nakayama, who has devoted himself to the revival of Suzu ware—a historic ceramic tradition once thought lost—will present works in both the Shiro-shoin and the concurrent group exhibition in the Kuro-shoin.Exhibiting ArtistGuest ArtistWhy Ninnaji?Ninnaji Temple: Photo courtesy of Ninnaji TempleNinnaji is a temple that has carried forward its cultural and spiritual practices through great loss and renewal. This exhibition brings together the work of contemporary craftspeople from Oku-Noto and a contemporary artist at a venue defined by that history, as a space in which to reflect on how culture is passed on through human hands.Ninnaji was completed in 888 CE under the 59th Emperor Uda. Following the near-total destruction of its structures in the Ōnin War, it was rebuilt in 1646. In 1994 it was inscribed as a component property of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto." Ninnaji official website: About Towa TakayaTowa Takaya | Contemporary Artist Born in Tokyo in 1992; based in Tokyo. Graduated from the Fine Art department of Goldsmiths, University of London in 2015. Centering her practice on the exploration of optical phenomena and materials, she develops painting as a site in which perception is generated through the relationships among light, matter, body, and environment. Using polarizing pearl, earth, minerals, CO₂-derived materials, and other substances, she creates visual experiences in which the physical properties of materials and the time recorded in specific landscapes are transformed through light, viewpoint, and environment. Works shift in color and depth depending on the angle and distance from which they are seen; images dissolve on approach and reconstitute themselves at a distance.In 2019 she launched the art project WHYNOT.TOKYO. Through exhibitions and artist support, she develops activities that connect creative practice with society, and since 2023 has supported the revival and continuity of Suzuyaki. Since 2022, she has been engaged in collaborative research with Shiseido MIRAI Technology Institute. In 2025 she presented the solo exhibition Concurrent Exhibition | Kuro-shoinThe Kuro-shoin presents an exhibition curated by Hiroki Yamamoto, featuring works by ceramicists and lacquerware artists from Suzu and Wajima alongside contemporary art works, available for both viewing and purchase. The exhibition brings together craft rooted in the materials and long history of specific places — Suzuyaki, Wajima lacquerware — with contemporary art that responds to shifts in society and understanding.The "entanglement" named in the exhibition's title refers to a condition in which those who support and those who are supported, cities and regions, tradition and the contemporary, past and future are not separate but mutually constitutive of a shared reality. Viewers, buyers, and supporters are also part of that relationship.Exhibiting Artists — Entanglement and CirculationWorks for Sale and Cultural SupportThe exhibition offers works for purchase by Towa Takaya and other participating contemporary artists, as well as craft works by the Suzu and Wajima makers. In addition to direct purchases, visitors may support the ongoing practice and technical continuity of makers through sponsorship and donation.Sponsorship and donation funds are managed separately from sales revenue. Their allocation and use, as well as a post-exhibition report on outcomes, will be published on the WHYNOT.TOKYO official website.Exhibition OverviewTitle: Towa Takaya Solo Exhibition Exhibition StructureShiro-shoin: Towa Takaya Solo Exhibition Planning and management: WHYNOT.TOKYO Grant support: Ogasawara Toshiaki Memorial Foundation, Cooperation: Ritsumeikan University PR cooperation: Ryosuke Maeda (Kikaku to Henshasha Co., Ltd.)Related ProgramSaturday, October 24, 2026, 13:00–15:30 A commemorative talk event will be held at the Hirai Kaichiro Memorial Library, Kinugasa Campus, Ritsumeikan University, to mark the opening of the exhibition. The program will address the current situation of Wajima lacquerware and Suzuyaki following the Noto Peninsula earthquake, and the role of craft and contemporary art in cultural continuity. Details including the program, speakers, and how to attend will be announced in a subsequent press release and on the WHYNOT.TOKYO official website.Curator's StatementIn preparing for this exhibition, I visited Noto with the support of WHYNOT.TOKYO. I was deeply impressed by the breadth of the support network WHYNOT.TOKYO has built in the region, and found myself in strong resonance with their commitment not to "observe damaged culture from a distance as an object of support," but to "build a sustainable circuit for cultural support." Confronting the reality that recovery in parts of Noto still has far to go, and at the same time meeting people — from within and beyond the region — who continue their activities without abandoning hope, I found myself greatly encouraged. I hope that through curating an exhibition drawing on my own field of contemporary art, I can help convey to viewers something of the vitality held within Noto's culture.Hiroki Yamamoto | CuratorAbout Towa Takaya and WHYNOT.TOKYOWHYNOT.TOKYO is an art project launched by contemporary artist Towa Takaya in 2019 and operated by Sora to Tsuchi Co., Ltd. The project plans and implements exhibitions and cultural support initiatives.During the COVID-19 pandemic, it worked to protect the conditions in which artistic work could continue — through reservation-based exhibitions and support with grant applications — even as social circumstances shifted dramatically. Since 2023, the project has expanded its scope to encompass art, craft, technology, and regional culture.Within this context, following the Oku-Noto earthquake of May 2023 and the Noto Peninsula earthquake of January 2024, WHYNOT.TOKYO has worked closely with Suzuyaki ceramicists and workshops: accompanying them through grant applications and rebuilding plans, and creating opportunities for their work to be shown and sold — supporting both the making and the livelihoods of artists.This engagement goes beyond restoring lost facilities. It involves sustained attention to the challenges that public support alone cannot address, with the aim of passing on — as living culture — the skills, knowledge, memory, and human connections cultivated in the region before the earthquake.WHYNOT.TOKYO connects the people, resources, skills, and spaces that sustain creative practice, nurturing a "cycle of creation" in which each exhibition leads to the next.Press InquiriesSora to Tsuchi Co., Ltd. / WHYNOT.TOKYO — Ninnaji Exhibition Press Office Contact: Noriko Takaya E-mail: n.takaya@whynot.tokyo
Threshold of Emergence — New Solo Exhibition at Tokyo International Gallery, Tennoz
SEPTEMBER 08, 2026In recent years, Takaya's interest has deepened from the expression of color itself toward the behavior of the materials that give rise to it. How matter reveals different phases — and transforms the experience of seeing — within its relations to light, environment, viewpoint, and body: this is the question that runs through her current practice. The "threshold" named in the exhibition's title is not a simple boundary. It is a critical site that appears in the moment just before meaning takes hold, or in the passage through which dissolved meaning begins to reconstitute itself into another order. We invite you to shift your position before the works, yield to the conditions of light, and encounter a pictorial space that emerges differently each time. Dates: Wednesday, September 9 – Saturday, October 24, 2026 Hours: 10:00 – 19:00 Closed: Sundays, Mondays, and Holidays (Tuesdays by appointment) Venue: Tokyo International Gallery Address: TERRADA ART COMPLEX II 2F, 1-32-8 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 9, 2026, 18:00 – 21:00(Free admission / No reservation required) Contact: info@tokyointernationalgallery.co.jp
Cover Artwork for the Shin Seisen Series of High School Japanese Language Textbooks (Meiji Shoin)
MARCH 31, 2026Towa Takaya has provided the cover artwork for all six volumes of the
Solo Exhibition ”Within Transience” in Ginza
MARCH 08, 2026Ginza Mitsukoshi Main Building, 7th Floor GalleryArtist’s attendance: To be confirmedThis exhibition will feature new works from Towa Takaya’s highly acclaimed Sakura series, which has become one of the artist’s most iconic and beloved bodies of work.Capturing fleeting moments of beauty that dwell within the flow of time, the exhibition presents a striking selection of cherry blossom works that evoke both transience and quiet intensity.In addition, at the Chandelier Sky space, a wristwatch created through a collaborative project with the Japanese watch brand MINASE will also be on display. This timepiece was developed over the course of approximately one year and embodies a shared exploration of craftsmanship and the perception of time.We invite you to experience these works, each offering a contemplative encounter with the passage of time, on this special occasion.Within Transience invites viewers to attune themselves once again to the subtle presences and cycles that quietly exist within nature. Through phenomena that resist fixed form—light, color, and fleeting sensations—the flow of time between nature and human perception gently emerges. 〈Mizuha〉, imbued with the memory of water; 〈Moss〉, as an accumulation of time; and 〈Cherry Blossoms〉, which bloom brilliantly only to fall—each series shifts in form while remaining interconnected, reflecting the changing aspects of a world in constant motion. The cherry blossom works presented in 2022, along with Ranman (2025), capture moments in which the radiance of life and its fragility appear simultaneously. When we place ourselves within the midst of change, we may, for the first time, come into contact with a vivid sense of being alive here and now. The light that rises from within fluctuation and impermanence becomes a quiet blessing toward life itself, gently accompanying the viewer’s own time. This exhibition is conceived as a space in which such a quiet blessing may come into awareness.
Solo Exhibition ”Timelessness” in Osaka
FEBRUARY 24, 2026Up coming exhibition2026.2.25 (Wed.) ー 3.9 (Mon.) HANKYU MENS Contemporary Art Gallery *Artist Attendance 2.25 (Wed.)
Collaboration with Japanese Watch Brand MINASE: "Yusai Dials" Series Announcement
SEPTEMBER 16, 2025Towa Takaya has announced a new JAPAN ART COLLECTION in collaboration with MINASE (KYOWA Co., Ltd.), a Japanese watch brand based in Akita Prefecture: the "Yusai Dials" (悠彩文字盤) series. For this collection, Takaya hand-paints each individual watch dial using the same techniques and pigments as her painting practice. The name "Yusai" combines two concepts: "Yuu" (悠), evoking the unhurried, eternal depth of time as a gently cyclical experience, and "Sai" (彩), referring to the layered, shifting quality of colour that changes with light and environment. Together they give rise to a world in which art — expressing time and phenomena — co-creates with the mechanical watch. The works were developed over approximately one year of research into new modes of expression, drawing on both Eastern and Western aesthetic sensibilities and inspired by the distinctive cultural traditions and craft of Japan. Released to mark the 20th anniversary of the MINASE brand, the collection comprises three models. SEVEN WINDOWS — Otherwise Than Being FIVE WINDOWS — Mid Pluralist Garden Venue: Ginza Mitsukoshi, New Building 4th Floor, Watch Section Exhibition & Pre-order Period: 17–30 September 2025 (From 3 October 2025, the collection continues at the MINASE flagship store "K CRAFTWORK JAPAN" in Akihabara.) Product details: https://minase-watches.com/yusai