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The 40th artist room was created by artist Yuji Kanamaru. The production is completed on March, 2024.
Room #3413 | Completion Date: 2024.03
I wanted to paint animals as much as I could on a wide, pure white wall.
With this in mind, I decided to paint “Birds and Animals in the City” instead of “Birds and Animals in the Flower” as a tribute to the world-renowned painter of the Edo period, Ito Jakuchu. I was inspired to make the different spaces where animals, trees, and the city are interwoven, and even the view of Tokyo from the room, a part of the artwork. The underwater creatures paired with the land animals are a giant turtle and hermit crab from a series that fuses the city and animals, which is one of my specialties.
The “A-Un”(Agyo and Ungyo)” symbolized by the mouths of the two guardian dogs is said to represent the beginning and the end of all things. As you go to the right from the “Agyou” guardian dogs, the twelve signs of the zodiac appear one after another, starting with the “Rat” and ending with the “Boar” before finally returning to the “Ungyou” guardian dogs.
I put all my feelings into this room, the “hymn to life” and the “long cycle of years” that I want to express as a painter.
Born in 1978 in Kanagawa Prefecture. Completed Graduate School of Design, Tokyo University of the Arts in 2003.
While in school, Kanamaru was trained by Masataka Oyabu and Chinami Nakajima. Always conscious of the role of artists in society, he founded the artist group C-DEPOT in 2002, and published art book “Yuji Kanamaru -Messenger of the age-” by maria publications in 2015. He draws animals as vessels for projecting his feelings by using his unique matiere technique.
2005 Exhibited in the Outstanding Rising Artists Exhibition presented by Sompo Japan Fine Art Foundation
2006 Exhibited in the “Korea Young Artists Biennale” (Daegu Arts Center)
2007 Exhibited in “ShinPA!” at Nakajima Chinamikan of Obuse Museum and The Sato Museum of Art
2018 Held “Yuji Kanamaru WILD PLANET -Spring of Life- Exhibition” at Park Hotel Tokyo
2019 Exhibited in the “From forest to forest” (Shinshu Takato Museum of Arts)
Illustrations for The Asahi Shimbun “Utadan/Haidan”
2021 Held solo exhibition “Animals’ Session” at Nakajima Chinamikan of Obuse Museum
Exhibited in the “Byogazukan” (Collection of The Sato Museum of Art)
2022 Exhibited in the “Glimmer of Contemporary Japanese Paintings” (Niimi Museum of Art)
