Ryo Yoshikawa (b. 1971) was born in Mashiko, a town famous for pottery, home to world-renowned potters Shoji Hamada and Tatsuzo Shimaoka. Ryo Yoshikawa’s unusual sense of creativity has created artwork which expresses the beautiful subtleties of everyday life through psychedelic colours that are powerful yet soft at the same time. He arrived at painting in a chiaroscuro (light-dark) style by studying the dazzling sunlight on the Italian peninsula, sandwiched between the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas. A recurrent subject in his picturesque paintings is that of the woods – compositions of trees, leaves and wildlife – which he is especially acquainted with through his frequent stays in a forest in his hometown.

According to art curator Sayako Mizuta (Japan), “The passage of time and shifting light, two of Ryo’s major themes, are subjects that inscribe other entities, as well as objects in which other things are reflected. The sensibility that possesses a keen awareness of these subtle environmental shifts produces, by virtue of its multifaceted meanings, a certain strength and intensity even with the context of a frail delicacy.”