ART OSAKA 2025

VIP Preview | 6 Fri. 1pm-3pm　※VIP invitee only.
Preview | 6 Fri. 3pm-7pm　※VIP, Invitee and Press only.
Open to the Public | 7 Sat. 11am-7pm　8 Sun. 11am-5pm

OSAKA CITY CENTRAL PUBLIC HALL 3rd Floor
1-1-27 Nakanoshima Kita-ku Osaka 530-0005 JAPAN
Gallery Sekiryu Booth：C-6

Gallery Sekiryu is pleased to participate in the ART OSAKA 2025 Galleries Section. ART OSAKA is the longest-running art fair in Japan, serving as a platform where trends among contemporary Japanese artists, particularly emerging and mid-career artists, can be explored. The venue, the Osaka City Central Public Hall, is located in the Nakanoshima area, a cultural hub of the city, and its historical and beautiful modern architecture is also a highlight.

This year, we will be presenting works by contemporary artists, including Astrid Köppe and Kazuki Nakahara, both of whom are based in Berlin and work primarily in drawing, and Ayumu Taniguchi, who creates woven sculptures based in Tokyo. Additionally, we will showcase the work from the late 1980s by Kazuyo Kinoshita, an artist who was based in the Kansai until the early 1990s and whose works have been recently re-evaluated. Our booth will feature these four artists, bridging the present and the past. We welcome you to visit and explore the art fair.

ART OSAKA 2025 Official | Exhibitors | Gallery Sekiryu

Astrid Köppe

Born in 1974 in Köthen, Germany. Lives and works in Berlin. From the beginning of her career, Köppe has consistently worked with drawing as her primary medium. She is known for her distinctive style, reminiscent of botanical illustrations, in which semi-abstract organic forms are rendered without background on A4 paper. Alongside these works, she also creates large-scale vitreous enamels. With their characteristic glassy luster and smooth texture, these pieces offer a dynamic extension of her visual language, while maintaining the delicate balance between figure and ground that is so characteristic of her drawings. Her sculptures and installations likewise extend her drawing practice into three dimensions. By playfully twisting familiar materials, Köppe invites viewers to see everyday objects from a new perspective—often with a touch of humor.

Works　　CV

Kazuki Nakahara

Born in 1980 in Kagawa, Japan, and has been based in Berlin since 2005. Working primarily with colored pencils and charcoal, he creates drawings composed of delicate accumulations of lines. His works—like woven fabrics threaded with subtle gaps or frays—reflect his roots as the grandson and son of avant-garde calligraphers, and are characterized by a quiet, improvisational dialogue with negative space — the Japanese concept of “ma”, a meaningful pause or interval that holds presence within absence. Nakahara’s consistent drawing style often evokes natural phenomena such as flickering light or the formation of clouds, as well as vast landscapes. His work has received growing recognition, including the Christine Perthen Prize from the Berlinische Gallery in 2017 and the Egmont Schaefer Prize for Drawing in 2020. He continues to exhibit at galleries and museums in Germany and beyond. His participation in this art fair marks a rare opportunity to view his work in Japan.

Works　　CV

Ayumu Taniguchi

Born in Tokyo. Since around 2008, she has been creating organic objects reminiscent of plant and animal organs using wire—a type of craft wire wrapped in thin paper, typically used in floral arrangements and handicrafts. Each three-dimensional form is intricately woven using only her fingertips, protected by thimbles. The resulting mesh structures make both the inside and outside visually accessible: under strong light, they cast shadows like delicate line drawings; under softer light, they take on a hazy ambiguity, like smoke or mist. Her practice centers on the acts of weaving, stitching, and tying—as if extending her own skin—and gives form to structures that echo the composition of nature and the human body.

Works　　CV

Kazuyo Kinoshita

Born in Kobe in 1939 and based in the Kansai region. In the 1970s, she gained recognition for her intellectually rigorous photographic works that explored questions of existence, perception, and cognition. From 1980 onward, Kinoshita moved away from photography—a medium grounded in objectivity—and made a significant shift toward the subjective act of painting. Beginning in 1982, Kinoshita developed a body of abstract paintings characterized by a restrained palette and the tension between brushstrokes. These works pursued a pictorial space that, in her words, could become “another kind of nature, or perhaps reality.” This exploration continued until her death from illness in 1994 at the age of 55. In 2024, thirty years after her death, a major retrospective held at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, and the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, presented the full scope of her work, reaffirming her place as one of the key figures in the postwar Kansai art scene. The exhibition highlighted the consistency of her lifelong inquiry into “existence” throughout her practice. Her work after the 1980s—long overlooked—drew renewed attention for the way it revealed her deep fascination with the mystery of painting, and her unwavering commitment to confronting it.

Works　　CV