Kokoro: The Heart of Things

19 March - 4 April 2026

  • Kokoro

    The Heart of Things
  • In Japanese, Kokoro (Jb) refers to the convergence of heart,mind, and spirit. As the conceptual axis of this exhibition, Kokoro — The Heart of Things brings together five artistsfrom Japan and Sri Lanka in a dialogue shaped by material,memory, and landscape.
     
    Working across painting, sculpture, ceramics, and installation, the artists draw from traditions such as Nihonga painting, figurative sculpture, and ceramic practice while reinterpreting them through contemporary perspectives. Materials including mineral pigments, gold leaf, and clay become vessels through which moments of change, reflection, and transformation are held.
     
    Positioned between permanence and transience, the works reflect shared sensitivities to nature, spirituality, and the passage of time. In this convergence of practices and cultural contexts, Kokoro unfolds as a quiet space of encounter where the inner dimensions of experience can be contemplated through form and material

     

  • Kingsley Gunatillake

    Kingsley Gunatillake is a prominent figure in Sri Lanka’s contemporary art landscape, recognized for his experimental, process-oriented practice. Working across...
    Kingsley Gunatillake is a prominent figure in Sri Lanka’s contemporary art landscape, recognized for his experimental, process-oriented practice. Working across painting, sculpture, and mixed media, his work investigates memory, materiality, and transformation, engaging with the historical and emotional resonances embedded in everyday objects.
     
    Gunatillake’s use of found materials, industrial substances, and unconventional surfaces establishes a distinctive material vocabulary. Texture, decay, and layering are central to his practice, with the process of creation shaping both form and conceptual meaning. This methodology challenges conventional modes of art-making and emphasizes the interrelationship between materiality and intellectual inquiry.
     
    In the Sri Lankan context, his practice has contributed to the evolution of contemporary artistic discourse, linking local narratives with broader considerations of identity, memory, and cultural experience. Over decades of sustained engagement, Gunatillake has shaped experimental and conceptually rigorous approaches to art. His work has been recognized through awards including the NOMA Award (Japan) and the Bunka Award (Sri Lanka), underscoring his lasting significance.
  • Kingsley Gunatillake Water of Silver I, 2025 Acrylic on Japanese Washi Paper, Wooden Panel 141 x 80 cm 55 1/2 x 31 1/2 in (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Kingsley Gunatillake Water of Silver II, 2025 Acrylic on Japanese Washi Paper, Wooden Panel 141 x 80 cm 55 1/2 x 31 1/2 in (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Kingsley Gunatillake Balloon in the Deep Sky, 2026 Acrylic on Japanese Washi Paper, Wooden Panel 200 x 552 cm 78 3/4 x 217 3/8 in (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Kingsley Gunatillake Untitled Acrylic on Japanese Washi Paper, Wooden Panel (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Kingsley Gunatillake Echo of the sun, 2026 Acrylic on Japanese Washi Paper, Wooden Panel 200 x 184 cm 78 3/4 x 72 1/2 in (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Kingsley Gunatillake Balloon in the deep sky I, 2025 Acrylic on Japanese Washi Paper, Wooden Panel 77 x 108 cm 30 1/4 x 42 1/2 in (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Kingsley Gunatillake Balloon in the deep sky II, 2025 Acrylic on Japanese Washi Paper, Wooden Panel 77 x 108 cm 30 1/4 x 42 1/2 in (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Kingsley Gunatillake, Water of Silver I, 2025

  • Wakako Sato

    Wakako Sato is a Japanese artist and educator, a graduate of Sojo University’s Graduate School of Art (2006), currently based...
    Wakako Sato is a Japanese artist and educator, a graduate of Sojo University’s Graduate School of Art (2006), currently based in Kumamoto. Her work navigates the delicate intersections of memory, myth, and emotional resonance, rendering moments suspended between presence and absence.
     
    Eschewing fixed narrative, Sato’s contemplative imagery inhabits liminal spaces where human and non-human, tangible and ephemeral, converge. Through this nuanced visual language, she evokes reflection and introspection, balancing personal intimacy with universal sensibility.
     
    Nationally acclaimed, including the Member’s Prize at the 11th Nitten (2024), her practice advances contemporary Japanese painting within an evolving dialogue of tradition and innovation.

     

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  • Kenji Nakamura

    Kenji Nakamura is a contemporary Japanese painter working within the tradition of Nihonga. A graduate of Kanazawa College of Art...
    Kenji Nakamura is a contemporary Japanese painter working within the tradition of Nihonga. A graduate of Kanazawa College of Art and currently Head of the Fine Art Department at Sojo University, his practice unfolds at the intersection of lineage and inquiry where inherited materials and techniques are rearticulated through a contemporary sensibility.
     
    Employing mineral pigments and gold leaf, Nakamura constructs a quiet yet profound paradox: permanence becomes the medium through which transience is made visible. His compositions dwell in suspended states flowers neither fully blooming nor entirely withered, landscapes that seem to recede into their own silence. In these restrained and meditative surfaces, time is not linear but diffused, lingering as a presence rather than passing as an event.
     
    Through this subtle orchestration of stillness, Nakamura invites a contemplative engagement, where memory is not depicted but embodied settling into the material as a trace, a residue, a quiet persistence.

     

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  • Kayoko Kusumoto

    Kayoko Kusumoto is a leading figure in contemporary Japanese sculpture, recognized for her life size and monumental figurative works that...
    Kayoko Kusumoto is a leading figure in contemporary Japanese sculpture, recognized for her life size and monumental figurative works that synthesize technical mastery with profound introspection. A graduate of Kagoshima University, she developed her sculptural language under the influence of Shinya Nakamura, inheriting a sensitivity toward form that is both disciplined and contemplative.
     
    Her practice is distinguished by an acute attention to anatomical precision and a restrained formal elegance, through which the human figure is rendered as a site of psychological depth and spiritual resonance.
     
    Whether presented in isolation or in quiet relational groupings, her sculptures inhabit a state of meditative stillness suspending time and directing the viewer inward. Alongside her artistic production, Kusumoto’s sustained contributions as an educator and institutional leader have positioned her as a formative presence within the discourse of contemporary Japanese sculpture.
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  • Toshikazu Kanai

    Toshikazu Kanai is a Japanese ceramic artist whose practice critically repositions the vessel as a locus of philosophical and spatial...
    Toshikazu Kanai is a Japanese ceramic artist whose practice critically repositions the vessel as a locus of philosophical and spatial inquiry. A graduate of Tama Art University’s ceramics program, he engages pottery beyond its functional origins, framing it as a conceptual medium through which form, perception, and spatial consciousness are interrogated and rearticulated.
     
    Grounded in the material ontology of clay, Kanai’s work operates at the intersection of object and idea, where the logic of containment is destabilized and reconfigured as expansion. His practice systematically challenges binary distinctions between interior and exterior, proposing instead a relational continuum in which the vessel functions as a dynamic generator of spatial awareness. 
     
    Through this theoretical and material framework, ceramics are elevated beyond utility, emerging as a critical and contemplative practice that mediates between tradition and contemporary discourse.
     
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