Opening Statement
aaploit is pleased to present “Rings of Mars” (「MARSの環」), a two-person exhibition featuring painters Akiba Kohei and Osa Seiichiro, from August 15 through August 31, 2025. This exhibition emerges from a decades-long friendship between two Tokyo University of the Arts graduates whose distinct approaches to painting create an unexpected dialogue about permanence, transformation, and the vast scales of time that govern both cosmic phenomena and artistic relationships. The exhibition title itself reflects the artists’ shared fascination with celestial mechanics and temporal mystery—Mars currently has no rings, yet scientists theorize that the planet has experienced cycles of satellite and ring formation across billions of years. In presenting these works together, aaploit invites visitors to discover how two individual practices can generate their own orbital dynamics, creating temporary but meaningful patterns that speak to both intimate friendship and cosmic time.
Exhibition Concept: Temporal Orbits and Artistic Dialogue
The curatorial vision behind “Rings of Mars” centers on the generative tension between individual artistic practice and collaborative discovery. Visitors will encounter two distinct painting approaches that have developed in parallel over decades, their separate trajectories occasionally intersecting to create moments of unexpected resonance. Akiba Kohei‘s vibrant, psychedelic compositions employ dramatic color and gestural movement to create seemingly multidimensional visual experiences, while Osa Seiichiro‘s minimal abstract works engage fundamental geometric forms—circles, triangles, squares—through what he describes as “matches” between artist and canvas.
The exhibition anticipates questions about how artistic relationships evolve across time, much like the theoretical rings of Mars that form, dissolve, and reform over geological epochs. These works do not illustrate friendship so much as demonstrate it through sustained parallel investigation, each artist’s practice maintaining its distinct character while occasionally sharing gravitational pull. The gallery space will become a site where visitors can observe these orbital dynamics in action, discovering how individual vision and collaborative energy can coexist without merging into homogeneity.
Artistic Practices: Parallel Investigations
Akiba Kohei brings to this exhibition a body of work characterized by bold chromatic experiments and explosive gestural energy. Born in 1982 in Tokyo and educated at Tokyo University of the Arts, Akiba utilizes vibrant color and dramatic movement to create his seemingly multidimensional drawings, exploring a variety of subject matters self-portraits to animals within his psychedelic drawings. His international exhibition history includes presentations at Galerie Liusa Wang in Paris and NANZUKA in Tokyo, establishing him as an artist whose work transcends cultural boundaries while maintaining distinctly personal visual language.
The works Akiba will present in “Rings of Mars” continue his investigation into how color and gesture can create spatial illusions that seem to extend beyond the picture plane. His painting process involves layering intense hues with rapid, confident brushstrokes that generate the sensation of movement and dimensional depth. Visitors will encounter canvases where figuration and abstraction merge through pure chromatic intensity, creating viewing experiences that feel simultaneously intimate and cosmic in scale.
Osa Seiichiro approaches painting through what might appear to be radically different methodology, yet his work shares with Akiba’s an interest in how simple elements can generate complex experiences. Born in 1985 in Shizuoka Prefecture and completing his graduate studies at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2011, Osa has developed an abstract painting practice centered on minimal, fundamental elements configured into circles, triangles, and squares. His creative process, which he characterizes as “matches” with the canvas, emerges from direct confrontation with materials, generating work where intentionality and chance, autonomy and external influence create dynamic tension.
Osa’s bold brushstrokes suggest expansion beyond the rectangular frame, and the time spent wielding the brush in confrontation with the canvas becomes what Osa calls “matches”—traces and echoes of this process that manifest as works standing before viewers. His recent artistic development has shifted focus from “painting (depiction)” to “application (of paint),” reflecting increased abstraction and material engagement. Notable exhibitions include solo presentations such as “Liliumsphere” (2023) and “UPO (Unidentified Painting Object)” (2020) at Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, as well as participation in significant group exhibitions such as “NEW VISION SAITAMA” at Saitama Museum of Modern Art and “The Whereabouts of Painting” at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery.
Spatial Transformation and Material Encounter
The aaploit gallery space will be transformed into an environment where these two distinct painting languages can exist in productive dialogue without compromising their individual integrity. Visitors will navigate a carefully choreographed installation where Akiba’s explosive chromatic energy and Osa’s minimal geometric investigations create alternating moments of intensity and contemplation. The exhibition design anticipates how viewers might move between dramatically different visual experiences while maintaining awareness of the underlying friendship and mutual respect that enables such artistic coexistence.
Key works from both artists will be positioned to create what might be understood as gravitational relationships—not forced correspondences, but organic proximities that allow each practice to illuminate aspects of the other. Akiba’s multidimensional color investigations will find counterpoint in Osa’s geometric reductions, while Osa’s process-based “matches” will resonate with Akiba’s gestural directness. The installation will invite visitors to experience how artistic difference can be generative rather than divisive, creating space for multiple approaches to coexist and inform each other.
Materials and techniques will play crucial roles in this spatial dialogue. Visitors will encounter the physical evidence of each artist’s particular relationship to paint, canvas, and gesture—Akiba’s layered color applications creating optical depth, Osa’s confident strokes suggesting movement beyond pictorial boundaries. The exhibition space will become a site where these material investigations can be experienced in relationship to each other, revealing both the specificity of individual practice and the possibilities for artistic conversation across difference.
Cultural Context and Contemporary Significance
“Rings of Mars” positions these two artists within broader conversations about contemporary Japanese painting while avoiding easy categorization or cultural reduction. Both Akiba and Osa represent generations of artists who have received thorough grounding in traditional painting methods through Tokyo University of the Arts’ rigorous oil painting program, yet have developed distinctly personal approaches that engage international contemporary art discourse without abandoning cultural specificity.
The exhibition’s title and concept connect to larger questions about time, permanence, and transformation that resonate throughout contemporary artistic practice. In an era when digital culture emphasizes immediate gratification and constant change, both artists demonstrate sustained commitment to painting as a medium that requires patience, physical engagement, and willingness to work through extended processes of discovery. Their decade-plus friendship provides a model for how artistic relationships can evolve across time without becoming routine or predictable.
The theoretical rings of Mars serve as metaphor for how creative partnerships can form, dissolve, and reform across extended timeframes, generating new configurations without losing essential character. This exhibition presents painting not as solitary practice but as medium capable of supporting genuine dialogue between distinct vision systems, offering viewers insight into how artistic community can function at intimate scale while addressing universal questions about creativity, friendship, and time.
Artist Information
Akiba Kohei (born 1982, Tokyo) graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts Oil Painting Department and has developed an international exhibition practice spanning Tokyo, Paris, and New York. His work has been presented at venues including Galerie Liusa Wang (Paris), NANZUKA (Tokyo), and Thomas Erben Gallery (New York). Akiba’s approach to painting emerges from sustained investigation into how color and gesture can create experiences that transcend traditional pictorial boundaries, developing visual languages that feel simultaneously contemporary and timeless.
Akiba’s artistic development reflects genuine engagement with painting as material practice rather than conceptual illustration. His works demonstrate technical confidence earned through years of studio investigation, yet maintain experimental openness to discovery and surprise. Recent projects have expanded beyond gallery contexts to include collaborations with fashion and media, establishing him as an artist whose work resonates across multiple cultural platforms while maintaining integrity to painting’s fundamental concerns.
Osa Seiichiro (born 1985, Shizuoka Prefecture) completed graduate studies at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2011 and has since developed a distinctive approach to abstract painting that balances minimal visual elements with complex process-based methodology. His exhibition history includes multiple solo presentations at Yutaka Kikutake Gallery, including “Liliumsphere” (2023) and “UPO (Unidentified Painting Object)” (2020), as well as significant group exhibitions at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery and Saitama Museum of Modern Art.
Osa’s artistic practice emerges from philosophical engagement with fundamental questions about how meaning emerges through material interaction. His characterization of painting process as “matches” reflects understanding of artistic creation as encounter rather than predetermined expression, generating works that capture traces of genuine struggle and discovery. Recent developments in his practice have seen a shift from “painting (depiction)” to “application (of paint),” demonstrating increased abstraction and material focus. Since 2019, Osa has been immersed in haiku composition, which has influenced his approach to painting through poetic consideration of limited elements and compressed expression. This multifaceted approach has positioned him as a significant voice among contemporary Japanese painters who maintain connection to traditional craft knowledge while developing distinctly personal aesthetic languages.
Exhibition Details
“Rings of Mars” (「MARSの環」)
Artists: Akiba Kohei and Osa Seiichiro
Dates: August 15 – August 31, 2025
Hours: Friday, Saturday, Sunday 13:00-18:00
*Private appointments available on weekdays
Venue: aaploit
TMK Building 2F, 1-21-17 Sekiguchi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo
Inquiries: info@aaploit.com
Collaboration: Yutaka Kikutake Gallery
This exhibition is supported by the continued friendship and artistic dialogue between two painters whose individual practices demonstrate how sustained creative relationships can generate new possibilities for artistic discovery and presentation.