AYA TAKANO'S World Comes to Los Angeles →

AYA TAKANO’S “how far how deep we can go" exhibition at Perrotin in LA invites visitors into a mystical world which offers an escape and hope for a brighter existence.

AYA TAKANO 地球上のすべての生物のスピリット  | the spirit of all life on earth, 2025. 130.3 x 162 x 3 cm | 51 5/16 x 63 3/4 x 1 3/16 inches. Oil on canvas. ©2025 AYA TAKANO/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy Perrotin.

text by Poppy Baring

Inspired by all art forms from Expressionism to the erotic art of Japan's Edo period, from manga artists such as Osamu Tezuka to Gustav Klimt, AYA TAKANO has been creating her own intimate fantasy since the age of three. Born in Japan in 1976, the painter, illustrator, and highly recognised Superflat artist welcomes LA residents to her new exhibition titled “how far how deep we can go”.

TAKANO presents otherworldly nymph-like characters that are extraterrestrial and yet still connected to and reflective of our reality. Drawing from the past and thinking to the future, she creates a limitless existence where time, gender, and age are undefined. Through various mediums, the Japanese artist investigates our inherent consciousness, exploring what it means to be marked by the past and connected to all life that occurred before us and will exist after us. Held in LA, home to spiritual seekers as well as recent environmental catastrophe, the exhibition offers a universe where all souls prosper as equals, a space where compassion prevails. In this interview, TAKANO provides insight into her worldview and her day-to-day life, asking visitors to look inwards and reconnect with the “radiance of all life.” Read More.

Gavin Fujita Overlays the Sacred with the Profane @ Buchmann Galerie in Berlin

In his show, “Blessings and Curses of this World,” Gajin Fujita masterfully plays with the codes of American popular culture and interweaves them with pictorial elements of the diverse ethnic cultures in a globalized world. Logos of multinational companies are fused with motifs reminiscent of the woodcuts and Ukiyoe paintings of the Edo period, the tribal signs of graffiti form the background for Raphael’s putti, creating a truly contemporary cosmos of hyper-entanglement.

The extensive painterly oeuvre of the Japanese-American artist is notable for its striking synthesis of traditional Japanese motifs and techniques with those of contemporary Western graffiti art, as well as its engagement with the rich histories of both Western and East Asian painting. Fujita thus calls into question the visual codes that underpin our supposedly stable cultural identities. By employing a distinct visual vocabulary that highlights the inherent contradictions associated with globalized cultural forms, the artist introduces a dynamic motion to the works.

Gajin Fujita emphasizes the tension between tradition and the present by using gold leaf for the background, as was used for precious paintings from the Orient to the Occident. In European medieval panel painting, the gold ground iconographically separated the sacred space from the profane space. In Fujita’s work, it serves as a background for graffiti tags and bright lacquer colours.

Gajin Fujita’s oeuvre represents the expression and outcome of a contemporary, multifaceted production of culture and images. His pictorial space demonstrates the coexistence of markedly contradictory cultural signs that are characteristic of the globalized reality of our contemporary era. The consistently popular work of the Californian painter is thus in tune with the times without losing sight of history.

Blessings and Curses of This World is on view through November 9th at Buchmann Galerie at Charlottenstraße 13, 10969 Berlin.