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Ryu-sen

Ryosuke Misawa

CONTRAST is pleased to present "Ryu-sen," a solo exhibition by artist Ryosuke Misawa from 9/20(Sat) to 28(Sun). Drawing from his background as a photographer, Misawa explores “light” not simply as a physical phenomenon but as a universal theme resonating with the essence of existence, mediated through time, space, memory, and bodily perception. His painterly language reconstructs light as both invisible presence and poetic metaphor. Across the canvases, flowing gradients layered with brushstrokes and colors evoke the flux of human endeavor, thought, and emotion. Like ever-shifting ryusen (streamlines), they echo the world through the viewer’s body. Linear structures interrupt this flow, leaving traces of order within the field. Misawa visualizes how cosmos and society weave themselves into being by juxtaposing fluidity and stillness, chance and inevitability, chaos and structure. As the title Ryu-sen implies, the exhibition also extends into spatial design. Light bends, intersects, and reflects in multiple directions, unfolding in layered motion. These traces stem from personal memories—oblique rays in a childhood garden, shadows at dusk in the city, or faint recollections in the studio—integrated into dialogue with the viewer. The works transcend visual pleasure by situating light as an “origin of beauty,” opening a resonant field where inner worlds are stirred. Here emerges a fundamental artistic pursuit: salvation, within the avant-garde context. Ryu-sen seeks to anticipate unseen worlds and illuminate the wounded soul, creating intimate sanctuaries of reflection. Through this exhibition, Misawa presents the universality and beauty of light as invisible energy, where order and chaos intertwine in subtle resonance. ー On the Occasion of the Exhibition Moeka Suzuki The central theme running through Ryosuke Misawa’s practice is the repositioning of light. For him, light is not merely a physical phenomenon. It emerges as record, as sign, as fluctuation in the act of interpretation. Beyond the joy of what is seen, light gently makes the passage of time visible and becomes a medium that awakens layers of memory. Like the spectrum dispersed by a prism, the endlessly shifting gradations he renders are traces of time itself—woven from continuity and rupture. What Misawa entrusts to light is the pursuit of the “universal.” Light is omnipresent and accessible to all; to depict it is, therefore, nothing less than an act of reaching toward universality. This act extends beyond the reproduction of beauty—it carries the shape of salvation. At the core of his work lies a formative memory: as a child, quietly watching light tremble through a curtain at a relative’s house, where solitude and beauty overlapped. We cannot avoid solitude, but beauty arrives as if to dwell beside it. Misawa’s light embraces this dual condition. This memory eventually opens light as a metaphor for life. Life itself is an aggregate of light, and that aggregate transforms into human relationships. Gradation signifies connection; separation suggests rupture; and their oscillation mirrors the dynamics of our encounters with others. The manifold aspects of light surpass the individual, generating symbolic structures that mediate order and chaos latent within society. Put differently, light illuminates human existence, rendering both solitude and coexistence visible at once. The exhibition Ryu-sen unfolds these reflections into space through a tripartite composition. On the first floor, the large-scale painting Zigen (size F150) covers an entire wall, while Zigen [+Beyond]—fabric imbued with ink—floats above. Fixity and drift, gravity and levitation—two modes of being resonate, transforming the space into a “kinetic body of light.” The second floor features Zigen works of various scales, playing out rhythms of repetition and difference. The basement level juxtaposes video, photography, and poetry, layering the problematics of light still further. The video work captures Misawa’s meditations on memory, cognition, and the expression of emotion through light. Can light retain its essence even after abstraction? What is chosen and discarded in the act of seeing? How do invisible emotions bleed into the image? The video raises these questions three-dimensionally, leaving space for the audience’s own contemplation. The photographic works, informed by his experience as a commercial photographer, extract light from everyday landscapes, bringing its presence to the fore. By viewing light through a lens different from painting, they open pathways toward universal experience, while drawing our attention to the beauty and flow of time hidden in the ordinary. The poems, beginning with the glare and flicker of physical light, expand into human dimensions of solitude, time, and existence. Language renders light not as mere natural phenomenon but as lived experience, resonating with the video and photography to infuse the space with a poetic rhythm. The basement as a whole becomes a site that binds physical light with human perception and activity, endowing the exhibition with depth and multiplicity. What Misawa presents is a pathway to the “universal” through the mediation of light. This universality is not an abstract ideal but a dimension rooted in individual experience, yet shareable with others. When a memory of solitude crystallizes as an image of light and rises again in the exhibition space, viewers will find themselves layering their own experiences onto it. The vision of salvation does not belong to the artist alone; it is reborn anew, again and again, through our collective gaze. Misawa’s endeavor is to question our relationship to the world, and to others, through light. Light flickers between order and chaos, containing solitude and beauty at once. By visualizing this invisible energy, his works awaken experiences that are universal. Ryu-sen, then, quietly but decisively poses a fundamental question: through the sign of light, how do we participate in the world, and how do we encounter the Other? ー Opening: 9/19(Fri) 18:00 – 21:00 Date: 9/20(Sat) - 9/28(Sun) Wed – Fri: 14:00 – 19:00 Sat, Sun, Holiday: 12:00 – 19:00 Closed: Monday Entrance: Free Venue: CONTRAST

Ryosuke Misawa

Born in Fukui Prefecture in 1992. Misawa creates works through his unique method, which he terms “Media Paradox,” with the underlying concept of “observing the universal.” Here, “observation” refers to the act of visualizing the tension and expansion that emerge between his own subjective perspective as a contemporary individual and the everyday phenomena he observes. Amid a rapidly changing society, he turns his gaze toward what remains constant—the universal—and expresses the beauty of the world through his art. In his recent works, Misawa has focused on “light,” an invisible presence, reconstructing its manifestations on canvas. Light, as a universal theme shared across all existence, serves as both a subject of inquiry and a symbol of the pursuit of resonance with pure beauty. Just as a single beam of light refracts into countless colors through a prism, his deeply subjective experiences are elevated into universal and multilayered interpretations. Gradations signify the interweaving and complexity of human activity, while separations and linear structures point to the inevitable order within the structure of the world. Through these formal elements, he projects a gaze rooted in his own lived experiences, cultivating aesthetic empathy with viewers and attempting to mediate the avant-garde artistic proposition of “salvation.” Recent notable activities include Fractal (GINZA TSUTAYA BOOKS, Tokyo, 2024); the 4th Makurazaki International Art Award Exhibition (Finalist, Nammekan Cultural Center, Kagoshima, 2025); Minato Art Festival (Hikawa Shrine, Mikuni, Fukui, 2025); Art Fair Tokyo (Tokyo International Forum, 2024); YouFeel (Shibuya Station public art project, Tokyo); Shinjuku Collective (Live Painting Performance, JR East, Shinjuku Station, Tokyo); and NOH (HOFA Gallery, Mykonos, Greece, 2023).

About CONTRAST
In 2022, CONTRAST opened as a creative space in Yoyogi-Hachiman, Tokyo. The interior, based on a 45-year-old structure, consists of three floors under the concept of "reconstruction," and is managed by IN FOCUS, a digital branding studio that operates under the theme of "We propose new perspectives through a collective pursuit of digital excellence.". The space not only serves as its own creative space but also aims to be widely open to the public, providing a space for continuous and experimental reconstruction by its users, breaking free from limitations. Focusing on various forms of expression and encountering the creators who produce them, we will come to understand the importance of "CONTRAST = comparison" in our endeavors. Operated by IN FOCUS.In 2022, CONTRAST opened as a creative space in Yoyogi-Hachiman, Tokyo. The interior, based on a 45-year-old structure, consists of three floors under the concept of "reconstruction," and is managed by IN FOCUS, a digital branding studio that operates under the theme of "We propose new perspectives through a collective pursuit of digital excellence.". The space not only serves as its own creative space but also aims to be widely open to the public, providing a space for continuous and experimental reconstruction by its users, breaking free from limitations. Focusing on various forms of expression and encountering the creators who produce them, we will come to understand the importance of "CONTRAST = comparison" in our endeavors. Operated by IN FOCUS.

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