“Different Art Gallery Yodoyabashi” Jinn Yagi Solo Exhibition Starts Wednesday, July 29.
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
As one of the 4th cohort of selected artists—and a creator who participated in last year’s “Different Kyomachibori Art Fair—Jinn Yagi will hold a solo exhibition. (On view through Tuesday, October 27)
Jinn Yagi is an artist and photographer born in Kyoto. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Middlesex in London. Using photography as his starting point, he is a unique artist who explores the essence of “seeing” in the contemporary world by traversing diverse media,
including sculpture, video, and installation. The exhibition features a dynamic selection of works—primarily new pieces created specifically for this solo show—that evoke a variety of impressions in viewers.
All exhibited works will be available for purchase online.
Opening Reception: Wednesday, July 29, 7:00 PM–11:00 PM. “Mizu Jazz” will be held.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
<Gallery Information>
different ART GALLERY YODOYABASHI
Venue: Yodoyabashi Station One, 30th Floor (3-6-22 Kitahama, Chuo-ku, Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture)
Hours: 10:00 a.m.–11:00 p.m. Free admission
Organized and Produced by: Different Kyomachibori Art Fair Executive Committee / Chigunitta Co., Ltd. / ZIZO Co., Ltd.
Statement
This work marks a turning point for me in exploring the essence of monochrome.
I layered color over and over,
and covered it with black time and again.
The colors I intended to erase
never disappear completely.
Even after layering paint over them,
their traces seem to breathe quietly
It was as if I were
applying layer upon layer of black to a scab on a wound.
I did not want to hide the color.
I wanted to accept my unorganized thoughts and emotions,
strip away the unnecessary,
and gaze upon what remained.
Black is not the end.
Black is not a color that suppresses emotions;
it is a color that quietly circulates them.
Negativity does not disappear;
it transforms into another form.
Destruction becomes regeneration,
chaos becomes order,
and loss transforms into white space.
My creative process has been a repetition of this cycle.
The lenticular works I’ve reintroduced this time
have given this cycle another dimension of time.
The images that appear change depending on the viewing angle,
and a single truth unravels into multiple vistas.
Memories, emotions, and values—
none of them exist in just a single facet.
Monochrome does not mean losing color.
It is the outline of the essence that finally emerges
once color has been stripped away. This
series of works is a quiet trace of time,
a record of the very process of my own transformation.
Jinn Yagi
Jinn Yagi | Artist & Photographer
Born in Kyoto, Japan, Jinn Yagi completed the Master’s Program in Interactive Design & Media at Middlesex University in London, earning a Master of Arts degree. He is a member of the Japan Professional Photographers Society (JPS). After holding his first solo exhibition in 2005, he marks the 20th anniversary of his artistic practice in 2025.
In September 2024, Yagi presented a solo exhibition at THE IW GALLERY in Brooklyn, New York, curated by Vida Sabbaghi, running for over a month. In 2026, a traveling exhibition was presented at EMPIRE STORES beneath the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, where the works remained on view for nearly a year within the historic architectural space.
Working from photography as a point of departure, Yagi moves between sculpture, textile, and installation, allowing multiple mediums and materials to intermingle. His works evoke the invisible distances, silences, and fragile boundaries embedded within contemporary society, allowing them to linger within space itself.
Yagi’s practice is characterized by an attempt to redefine photography not merely as a documentary medium, but as an “image summoned into space” — one that draws in borrowed landscapes, extracted color, emotional contours, and the aura residing within people and places. In particular, he has focused on transparent divisions reminiscent of the acrylic barriers installed between people during the pandemic, transforming the sediment of language, emotion, and residual memory into material experiences that exceed the flat surface of photography.
His body of work brings into presence the invisible tensions that emerge between individual and society, body and system, memory and history, both spatially and visually, in the space between people themselves.
In recent years, influenced by his mother’s background as a sculptor, Yagi has expanded into three-dimensional expression using lightweight materials such as Styrofoam. By dissolving the contours between photography and sculpture, he explores new modes of perception and embodied experience. His approach introduces sculptural physicality and environmental scale into an image culture historically confined to flatness, quietly unsettling the institutional frameworks through which photography has traditionally been understood.
Solo Exhibitions
2005 – HONESTY, etw, Kyoto
2020 – Unnatural Nature, KG+, LS STUDIO & Gallery, Kyoto
2021 – Ambiguous Border Patterns, KG+, LS STUDIO & Gallery, Kyoto
2022 – LGBTQ+, Kyoto Bar Association, Kyoto
Patterns of Boundaries Between Me and Others, KG+, LS STUDIO & Gallery, Kyoto
JINN YAGI SOLO EXHIBITION, TUNE STAY KYOTO, Kyoto
2023 – Sensitive Daily Life and Panicky Nights, KG+, backs Gazai Gallery, Kyoto
2024 – Rinne: Fragments of Circulation, KG+, backs Gazai Gallery, Kyoto
WILDBOYS film screening, Marché du Film, Cannes Film Festival, France
Kuu: Moments of Circularity, THE IW GALLERY, New York
2025 – 20 years, KG+, Art Space Kan, Kyoto
2026 - Social Layer – The Comfort of Silence Artspace Kan Kyoto Japan
Group Exhibitions
2022 – My Work Exhibition, Fuji Photo Salon & AMS Gallery, Kyoto and Osaka
2023 – 5th Kansai JPS Member Exhibition, Fuji Photo Salon & AMS Gallery, Kyoto and Osaka
2024 – 6th Kansai JPS Member Exhibition, Fuji Photo Salon & AMS Gallery, Kyoto and Osaka
2025 – 7th Kansai JPS Member Exhibition: Professional Eyes, Fuji Photo Salon & AMS Gallery, Kyoto and Osaka
13th Discover the One Japanese Art 2025 in Paris, Espace Cinko, France
The 12th Cheongju International Contemporary Art Exhibition, SEMA Museum of Art, South Korea
“Creating Ma (間) — Between Korea and Japan”(Kyoto Hall Keiryu)
2025 - Nikon Plaza Tokyo / Osaka THE GALLERY
2025 - Different Kyomachibori Art Fair
2026 - NEWYORK EMPIRE STORES Traveling Exhibition
KUU – Moments of Circularity Jinn Yagi & Mabo Curated by Vida Sabbaghi
2026 - MINERVA 2026 in London Mall Galleries – West / East / North Galleries
2026 -The 4th Kazu Nakagawa Exhibition, Osaka
2026 -Yeoju International Photo Festival
“Dialogue of Earth” in KG+ SPECIAL Kyoto Station Building
2026 - icon Contemporary Photography Exhibition
2026 at SHIBUYA SACS, Tokyo
2026 - Different Art Fair in Yodoyabashi Station One 30F Osaka
Main Video Works
2012 – Gift to the Earth, video installation for POLA Ginza, Tokyo
2024 – WILDBOYS (Producer), France
Showa Dengyo & KI NO BI promotional videos, Osaka & Kyoto
Main Interactive Media Projects
2017 – SHUFFLE, interactive table artwork synchronizing video and music, UK
Interactive window display project, UK
Comments