biscuit gallery Sawako Nasu at "Iemura Seminar Exhibition 2026"
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Sawako Nasu at
“Iemura Seminar Exhibition 2026”
IEMURA SEMINAR EXHIBITION 2026 / TAMA ART UNIVERSITY
In a Space, with Natural Light Only,
Placing Sawako Nasu’s Paintings
Sawako Nasu
2026.10.3 (Sat) – 10.26 (Mon)
The painter Sawako Nasu will take part in “Iemura Seminar Exhibition 2026: In a Space, with Natural Light Only, Placing Sawako Nasu’s Paintings” at the Art-Theque Gallery on the Hachioji campus of Tama Art University. The exhibition runs from Saturday, October 3 to Monday, October 26, 2026. Nasu’s oil paintings will be shown under natural light in a large space of about 560 square metres, part of which reaches nine metres in ceiling height.
The Iemura Seminar Exhibition is an annual exhibition organised by the Exhibition Design Seminar of the Department of Art Studies at Tama Art University, led by Professor Tamayo Iemura. This year’s edition marks its tenth iteration. The venue, the Art-Theque Gallery, has many glass surfaces, and outside light shifts throughout the space depending on weather and time of day, giving it a rare character for an exhibition space.
The “Natural Light Only” Series
Since the exhibition “Ryuji Nakamura: Displaying the Exhibition Room” four years ago, the seminar has continued to present exhibitions that use no artificial light. Paintings by Rieko Hidaka, sculptures by Rieko Otake, and films by Ryuji Nakamura have been placed in this space in turn. How the works appear shifts with the time of day, the weather, and the presence of visitors. The exhibition invites each visitor to notice, with their own eyes and body, what can only be sensed while they are there.
Exhibition Highlights
The starting point of the exhibition’s design is that, at Nasu’s request, plywood boards will be installed in the Art-Theque Gallery. Previous editions of the “natural light only” series deliberately made no changes to the gallery itself, taking the existing space as a given. Placing works and materials in that environment, and observing how the space and the works shifted with the passage of time, the weather and the situation, allowed us to notice things that had not been visible before. That was the guiding principle of the series. This time, that premise is joined by an intentional gesture of construction on the part of the artist. Nasu also differs from the artists who have taken part in previous editions: she is a young painter who turns thirty this year, and she does not yet have a long record of museum exhibitions. Yet, drawing on a childhood spent in a family of theatre practitioners and her own experience in stage design and direction, she is confronting the Art-Theque Gallery’s roughly 560 square metres, with parts of the ceiling reaching as high as nine metres, without hesitation. Rather than treating this vast space as a mere backdrop, she is exploring, with her own sensibility, how paintings can rise up within it.
Colour, too, becomes a central element this time. The works and materials featured in previous editions did not carry colour in the ordinary sense. Nasu’s paintings, by contrast, depict landscapes and figures through thin, layered strata of oil paint. How will these delicate colour layers change under shifting natural light? Will that change stay within the paintings, or will it spread throughout the space? The way colour emerges under natural light is one of the exhibition’s most significant elements.
About Sawako Nasu
Sawako Nasu is a painter who turns thirty this year. Having grown up in a family of theatre practitioners and worked in stage design and direction herself, she uses the language of painting to describe distance, connection, and relation. Rather than treating the large gallery space as a mere backdrop, she is approaching it with her own sensibility, exploring how paintings can rise up within it.
Related Talk Events
TALK 1 Saturday, October 10, 13:00 – 15:00
Part 1: Masato Kobayashi (painter), Yoshimi Chinzei (curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)
Part 2: the Part 1 speakers + Sawako Nasu (painter), Tamayo Iemura
TALK 2 Monday (holiday), October 12, 13:00 – 15:00
Jun Aoki (architect), Takuya Nakao (art critic), Ryuji Nakamura (architect), Sawako Nasu (painter)
Both talks are held at the Art-Theque Gallery. No reservation required — please come directly to the venue.
INFORMATION
Exhibition Iemura Seminar Exhibition 2026 “In a Space, with Natural Light Only, Placing Sawako Nasu’s Paintings”
Artist Sawako Nasu
Dates Saturday, October 3 – Monday, October 26, 2026
Hours 10:00 – 17:00
Closed Sundays (October 4, 11, 18, 25)
Admission Free
Venue Art-Theque Gallery, Hachioji Campus, Tama Art University
Address 2-1723 Yarimizu, Hachioji-shi, Tokyo 192-0394, Japan
Organised by Exhibition Design Seminar, Department of Art Studies, Tama Art University (Prof. Tamayo Iemura)
Iemura Seminar Exhibition 2026 — official site ›
* Dates, opening hours, and talk event details are subject to change. Please check the official website of the Iemura Seminar Exhibition 2026 for the latest information.