What a work of art does is to make us see or comprehend something singular, not judge or generalize.

--Susan Sontag, from "Against Interpretation" (*)

Yurika Roppongi studied design at Tokyo University of the Arts. She began her career as a painter under the guidance of Chinami Nakajima, a Japanese-style painter.

Since then, he has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Tokyo and won the Grand Prize in the "Hana Tokyo Award 2022," making him one of the most sought-after artists of the moment.

Lion heads and pit bulls that appear suddenly and strut around on the screen as if they belong there. The motifs that appear in Roppongi's paintings are said to have appeared in her mind just before he painted them.

Whether they are almost improvised or based on interviews with the young people who gather in Shibuya, her paintings are the expression of herself (and others) living in the "now.

 

It is almost impossible to interpret her works, which are distanced from the logic and concept behind their production, and the viewer is confronted with them without the filter of the self.

The painted space that we see in this way begins to shine as a new world filled with a sense of exuberance.

 

To paint is to live - such words can be heard from the paintings of Yurika Roppongi, which will be exhibited and sold along with other works selected from the Walls Tokyo collection.

*Susan Sontag (1996) "Against Interpretation", translated by Yasunari Takahashi et al, Chikuma Shobo