Maoya Kishi at TATSURO KISHIMOTO, Tokyo

Maoya Kishi creates a wide range of works, including sculptures and installations, using materials such as timber, construction supplies, blue tarps, styrofoam, and LED signboards—elements that, on their own, have no inherent meaning. These materials are assembled with minimal alteration in a simple manner. As viewers, we instinctively attempt to discern the artist’ s intentions or decipher what the work is meant to represent, but such efforts often prove futile. Instead, we find ourselves simply dumbfounded, facing the work itself and wondering, “What exactly is this?”

In his creative process, Kishi closely observes existing objects and phenomena in society, engaging in a kind of dialogue with everything around him. He pays keen attention to the texture, condition, and assembly of the materials. By dismantling conventional structures and frameworks, he reconfigures them according to his own set of rules and logic—almost as if he were inventing a new language. The resulting works often take forms we’ ve never seen before, and it seems that Kishi is persistently exploring the boundary at which mere materials begin to take on the qualities of sculpture.

Things rarely go exactly as planned—this is true in life and in art-making. There are always constraints: gravity, the physical characteristics of materials, how they can be processed or connected. In Kishi’ s works, we often see dynamic elements embedded in static compositions. Despite the apparent simplicity of their structure, the meanings they evoke remain elusive. His work merges order with disorder, inserting inorganic materials into otherwise emotional imagery. Opposing forces— stillness and motion, clarity and confusion, control and chaos, emotion and material—coexist within his pieces. This coexistence creates a sense of strangeness, discomfort, or alienation. Kishi’s art traces a unique path in search of new ways of being and perceiving. One might even say he finds joy in things not going according to plan.

Maoya Kishi

Born in 1986. Graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts, Department of Sculpture, in 2009.

Selected Exhibitions:

“Osaka Directory 2: Maoya Kishi” (2022, Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka), “The Abundance of Things – Contemporary Art in Toyokawa” (2015, Toyokawa City Sakuragaoka Museum, Aichi), “Real Japanesque” (2012, The National Museum of Art, Osaka), “The Source of Inspiration” (Window Display for Maison Hermes Ginaza, Tokyo).