KIX CULTURE GATE Project is an initiative to showcase the rich and diverse culture of Kansai and Japan, based at Kansai International Airport (KIX), where travelers from around the world come and go.
This time, for the first time, the exhibition will be held inside Terminal 1. The corridor wall in the domestic flight area on the 2nd floor will be adorned with art, transforming the airport from a transit hub into a cultural gateway through artistic expression.
Eleven artists with diverse connections to the Kansai region will participate in the exhibition. Their unique works will bring vibrant color to the airport and offer new discoveries to visitors.
As a step toward evolving the airport into a platform for cultural exchange, KIX CULTURE GATE Project will continue to enhance the appeal of the airport and provide exciting experiences that make travel even more enjoyable.
ART WORKS
This work captures the ever-changing expressions of the sky and water against the backdrop of Japan’s natural environment, expressed through color and form.
The fluid shapes and resonating hues evoke the flow of water, symbolizing the cycles of nature and the passage of time.
For travelers and those on their way home, I hope this piece offers a moment to feel the presence of Japan’s landscapes and to recall the personal scenery that lingers in the heart.
Born in 1993 in Nagano, Japan. Based in Kyoto.
Completed her Master’s degree in Painting at Kyoto University of the Arts in 2017.
Her work translates perceptions and sensations of the world—and their inherent mysteries—into painting. The illusory and distorted spaces unique to the pictorial surface invite viewers to rediscover “discrepancies with reality,” expanding their imagination into multidimensional realms that cannot be perceived in everyday landscapes.
This work was created while exploring the balance between motherhood and artistic practice, guided by a daily search for a sense of wonder.
The title Even If You Don’t Know the Bird’s Name was inspired by Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder, which reminds us that “it is not half so important to know as to feel.”
The piece embodies an affirmation of my own dual identity as both a mother and an artist—not as a denial of other choices, but as a gesture of respect for all paths and the diverse ways of living that each person chooses.
Born in 1988 in Kumamoto, Japan.
Completed her Master’s degree at Kyoto University of the Arts in 2016, and is currently based in Kyoto.
Her paintings revolve around the fundamental questions of “What is the self?” and “What does it mean to be human?” In exploring the unknowable and the unresolved, she combines symbolic motifs such as children, skulls, meteorites, mountains, plants, and insects—creating images that invite multiple interpretations depending on the viewer’s perspective.
My paintings are artwork for looking at paint. In order to present the paint's existence, I adopt a method of finishing in "one stroke", minimising expressing my emotions or the act of depicting during production. At the moment of stretching out the mountainous amount of paint in front of me, I try to put the paint under my control, but the paint retaliates as if to be alive. Paints have all the freedom to become anything upon the white canvas, and to me that is extremely inarticulate. Through competing with something so inarticulate hundreds and hundreds of times, I realised that the seasons, the temperature, or the light of the moment, all travel through my body and appear as traces in the paint. I want to see the landscape that those before us saw, each mastering their own paths and reaching their truth in life. Today like every other, I will ground my body and confront paint.
Born in Fukuoka. Received M.F.A. in painting, Kyoto University of Art and Design, 2016. During her stay in the Philippines, developed a longing for the culture of her homeland, Japan, and became strongly attracted to Japanese abstract painting. Katsuki blends over 375 shades of blue herself, and abides by her minimal rule of “one stroke” to produce a work of paint as its main subject. Katsuki has participated in various exhibitions, art fairs, and corporate collections.
Ink is dripped onto a copier, generating accidental images that are then printed and transcribed onto canvas by hand. Through a reproductive device, the act acquires singularity, embodying the paradox of being both copy and original. While Walter Benjamin argued that “reproducible art loses its aura,” this work, on the contrary, generates aura through reproduction. The hand-painted strokes embody human imperfection and impossibility, projecting their instability onto the surface.
1997 born in Tokyo
2020 Tama art University Faculty of Art and Design Oil Painting Course Graduation 2022 Kyoto University of the Arts Graduate School of Art and Design Studies
Fine and Applied Arts Field Complete
【SOLO EXHIBITION】
2022 MEDEL GALLERY SHU『ERROR』
2022 MtK contemporary Art(.S inside the store)『mtk+vol.10 Hal Osawa』
2023 GALLERY ROOM・A 『Light』
2024 ART OSAKA 2024 biscuit gallery 『DISCHARGE』
2025 Ginza Tsutaya Art Wall『Only in the ‘here’ and ‘now’』
This artwork was created onboard a domestic flight arriving and departing from Terminal 1 of Kansai International Airport.
Wearing a bright red costume all over his body, the artist is known as “The Red Man” in Osaka.
In 1992, he opened the “Red Gallery,” a bright red gallery.
In 1997, he moved to a new location and opened the "Ken Hamazaki Museum of Contemporary Art".
Currently, he is working under the concept of “flying”, “sleeping”, and "sitting".
The "flying" is "In-Flight Painting". It is a work in which the artist finishes his work in his studio, which is the closest to space, while flying in the sky in an airplane. He is truly an "artist with no feet on the ground".
The "sleeping" is "In-Sleep Drawing". It is the ultimate in abstract painting, in which the artist paints while sleeping every day. This is truly an "artist selling dreams".
The "sitting“ is a tea ceremony performance called ”Red Tea Ceremony-YOU ARE GOD-" performed in Japan and abroad. He performs under the name of Hechiken, the successor to the tea master Hechikan. He has been featured as an icon of the “Burning Man” art event held annually in the Nevada desert in the United States.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi was re-evaluated as an avant-garde painter in The Lineage of Eccentricity, published in 1970. This work, inspired by his Sanuki-in’s Retainers Rescuing Tametomo, merges traditional Japanese patterns with BAKI designs—a fusion of subcultures—and is painted on Yumeshima, overlooking Osaka Bay.
Although mural art has struggled to take root in Japan, this is beginning to change, particularly in Osaka. From Ukiyo-e to Manga, Sekiga to Mural—popular art has always evolved. By revisiting the essence of artistic expression on the eve of Japan’s historic opening to the world, this work aims to showcase a distinctive cultural identity. May the hopes passed down by our predecessors spark meaningful cultural exchanges with visitors from all over the world.
Born 1978 in Osaka. Inspired by Japanese subcultures, BAKI pattern is a modern update of ancient patterns, and aspires to become a representative Japanese pattern of the 21st century. While its roots are in live painting at clubs, festivals and other music venues, it is currently active both in Japan and abroad, focusing on exterior wall painting and public art.
Even when fragments of a corporate sign or the letters once forming its logo are dismantled and reassembled, a shared perception endures — sustained by the scenery etched in our collective
Symbolically depicting a spherical city that reconstructs fragmented urban imagery and encapsulates layers of memory and time.
Based in Kanazawa, the artist presents works both in Japan and internationally.
As AI emerges and the relationship between humans and machines is redefined, I have found myself reflecting more on processes, results, and the nature of continuity.
In Buddhism, the concept of Rokudō Rinne describes the endless cycle of rebirth through six realms of existence. This cycle is not a linear timeline with a beginning and an end, but a continuously transforming flow of time.
In Shinto, Tokoyo refers to a distant, eternal world beyond the sea—a place from which beings come and to which they depart. The infinite sense of distance toward that faraway horizon, and the cyclical perception of time, resonate deeply with the sensations I experience within the digital world I inhabit daily.
Takakurakazuki is an artist whose work explores the rewriting of contemporary art through Eastern philosophy, particularly Buddhism, while reimagining the value of digital data and investigating the aesthetics of character variation.
“The Circle of Impermanence” is a series of stamped circle works made using toilet paper.
By transforming this most ordinary and consumable material into ensō—the circular symbol of the Japanese cosmic view—the work expresses the Buddhist truth that “all things in this world are transient and ever-flowing.”
Created together with people I meet, each circle becomes a shared moment—an act of observation and coexistence—expanded as a participatory art movement called “Quantumism.”
Contemporary artist / Producer and curator of the KIX CULTURE GATE Project.
Born in 1989 in Hyōgo, Japan, and based in Tokyo after graduating from Ritsumeikan University.
Motohashi explores the question, “What is truth—what is certain in the world or within oneself, what must be accepted, what can be believed?” through a wide range of expressions including painting, sculpture, and installation.
In addition to exhibiting his work both in Japan and abroad, he has initiated numerous projects that realize art as social sculpture, integrating artistic practice into society itself.
My artworks are created as “Fictional Ancient Artifacts” by mixing images of gods, humans, animals and plants from various eras and places. They are made under the interests “the state where different elements coexist in harmony” or “the processing that changes the purpose and meaning of things”.
The materials used for the ceramic sculptures are black clay and black glaze. The titles of the works, such as "BC240610" consist of BC (Black Clay) and six numbers (the date the work was completed). The achromatic finish and inorganic titles are intended to remove any information associated with the motifs and to liberate the works.
Born in 1980 in Kanagawa, Japan. Lives and works in Osaka, Japan.
He spent his childhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and attended a high school in Barcelona, Spain. His solo exhibitions were held at galleries in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hong Kong, New York and Paris.
The Odunpazarı Modern Museum (OMM) is a private museum in Eskişehir, Turkey, founded by collector Erol Tabanca. Its opening exhibition, The Union, presented around 90 works from his collection, including paintings, sculptures, and media art.
In the museum’s main hall, the large-scale installation GODAI was created, themed on the five elements that constitute the universe—earth, water, fire, wind, and void—expressing their intersection and ascension toward the heavens. Now part of the museum’s permanent collection, the work reflects the warmth and sincerity of the people of Eskişehir, the vividly colored timber architecture imbued with history, and the harmony of nature and culture. Against this backdrop, it symbolizes the energy that connects Japan and Turkey, tradition and innovation, humanity and nature, toward the future.
Born in Sakai, Osaka. After graduating from the Department of Sculpture at Tokyo University of the Arts, he studied under his father, the Tanabe Chikuunsai Ⅲ, and succeeded to the name of the Chikuunsai Ⅳ in 2017. While continuing to create craft works that inherit traditional techniques, he develops contemporary objects and installations themed on the fusion of nature and humanity and the cycles of life, and is active worldwide.
