“Jiji and Kinako on Washi”, your photography exhibition with Sway Gallery London, explored the extraordinary connection between a 94-year-old man with Alzheimer’s and his loving cat. Celebrating relationships is a key theme of your work – how have you adapted during the pandemic, since many of us are unable to meet others in person? Akiko: It was hard and it still is hard to adapt to this new-normal. I am someone who needs human connection and the more the pandemic situation got serious and the more this new-normal became real, I began to crave for it. However, I found that it wasn’t just me. When we still didn’t know much … Read More

You’ve held two solo shows in 2018 and 2020 at Sway Gallery London, how did these come about? SAKI: Sway Gallery had kindly contacted me to offer me show space. The first show (“Hana Machi”) went really well and so we decided to collaborate on another (socially distanced) exhibition called “Tayu Tau”. We’re hoping to plan a third one but… we’ll see. Having started out in street art in 2009, you’ve since become well-known for other art forms and mediums, such as illustration and portraiture painting – was this a natural transition? S: Yes, when I think about my art career, everything just happened naturally. At first, I wasn’t even … Read More

You exhibited at Sway Gallery twice in 2019, with “Bijin-ga Vague” in Paris and “Lost in Transition” in London – could you tell us a little bit about how the shows came about? Did you curate each exhibition based on each city? AKIKO: My very first solo exhibition was held at Sway Gallery Paris in March 2019, it opened on International Women’s Day and the theme was, of course, the woman; bijin-ga is a Japanese term for the depiction of beautiful women. I exhibited about 40 different works, which were inspired by traditional ukiyo-e. It was a beautiful experience that taught me a lot and that gave me the opportunity … Read More