WHITESTONE Gallery Karuizawa will be hosting "Relationship," the first solo exhibition at WHITESTONE by artist Yuya Hashizume.

Yuya Hashizume, after gaining experience in PR and sales, including advertising design, for outdoor brands, honed his skills through self-study and expanded his activities as a painter. His portrait series "eyewater," released in 2017, is one of Hashizume's representative works. This series, which captures the moment a single tear falls from the eye of a figure drawn in an anime-like style, has attracted attention and become a topic of conversation since its release.

Hashizume's work primarily consists of paintings featuring cute characters drawn with thick outlines against a monochrome background, creating a minimalist, iconic, and memorable style. His methodology is based on the influence of Fujiko Fujio, a manga artist whom he has admired and respected since childhood, and he uses such widely known and popular images to construct a captivating and original artistic world.
Through these techniques, popular motifs are reinterpreted in the artist's unique style, and images we see every day are transformed and completed as works of art.
It is a moment when familiar everyday life takes on a different meaning, allowing the viewer's consciousness to be directed to a new dimension.

In his previous works, Hashizume has valued the relationship between his artwork and the source of its inspiration. In this exhibition, "Relationship," he turns his attention anew to all the "human connections" that have taken for granted, from the people who produce the raw materials to those who transport them, those who sell them, and those who appreciate and evaluate the artwork, and presents a new and unprecedented collection of works.

This exhibition is divided into two parts, using "until..." and "from..." as keywords to trace the artist's transformation from the past to the future. It goes beyond simply presenting "paintings" and explores the materials, connections with people, and the "relationships" that arise between the artist and the viewer.
Gallery 2 will feature an exhibition that looks back on the artist's journey to date, focusing on canvas works and print editions created up to 2025.
Gallery3, as a new challenge starting in 2026, will focus on "paper," an important material for the artist, and present new works that fuse traditional Japanese techniques with Hashizume's concept.
With the cooperation of the paper manufacturing company "Onao" in Yamanashi Prefecture, you can see new expressions of Hashizume, including tapestries using their original washi paper "Naoron" and other washi paper artworks.

Please enjoy the new forms of "relationships" depicted by Yuya Hashizume, who continues to explore original boundaries while inheriting the context of manga and anime.

• Planning and Organizing

  WHITESTONE Gallery

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