TAKASE Kanna
TAKASE Kanna JP, b. 1994 BIO EXHIBITION WORKS CV PRESS 繁｜EN
Japanese Artist TAKASE Kanna oil painting Hiro Hiro Art Space
TAKASE Kanna
TAKASE Kanna (b. 1994, Osaka) completed her MFA in Painting at Kyoto City University of Arts in 2020 and continues to be based in Kyoto. In 2024, she received the Grand Prize at Kyoto Art for Tomorrow and held a major solo exhibition at The Museum of Kyoto Annex. Her practice begins with writing: noting down the people, moments, and things that catch her attention in daily life, then using those words as the starting point for a painting. Her work takes human relationships as its subject, tracing the feelings that resist articulation in the space between people, including the barriers, frustration, grief, and pain that pass between them, as well as the emotions that stay buried, never quite surfacing, never quite seen. To carry these feelings, TAKASE turns to animals, plants, and everyday objects as stand-ins, translating what is anxious or difficult into imagery that is vivid, playful, and at times almost childlike. The gap between cute and dangerous, between humor and hurt, is where her work lives. Claws and fangs, recurring throughout her paintings, speak to the ways people wound each other; fur that covers the body becomes a metaphor for self-protection. What cannot be said out loud finds its way instead into the expressions and postures of animals, forming a pictorial language that is at once tender and sharp.
Related Exhibitions
Works
CV
1994
Born in Osaka, Japan
2018
BFA Painting, Kyoto City University of Arts, Kyoto
2020
MFA Painting, Kyoto City University of Arts, Kyoto
Awards
2025: Pommery Prize Kyoto 2025 – Grand Prize Winner
2024: Kyoto Art for Tomorrow 2024 Kyoto Prefecture Emerging Artists Selection Exhibition –
Grand Prize Winner
Solo Exhibitions
2026
“Still Soft, Still Sharp” Hiro Hiro Art Space, Taipei
2025
“After the Same Moon” imura art gallery, Kyoto
“Read Your Diary” CADAN Yurakucho, Tokyo
2024
“far yet near, apart yet intertwined” The Museum of Kyoto Annex, Kyoto
“I hear a clumsy whistle” SHUTL, Tokyo
2023
“Sigh at the Stars” imura art gallery, Kyoto
2021
“Walk in a tale” KYOTO OKAZAKI TSUTAYA BOOKS, Kyoto
2020
“Midday leftovers” Gallery Morning, Kyoto
2019
“A story I don’t remember” Gallery of Kyoto City University, Kyoto
Group Exhibitions
2026
“grid5” biscuit gallery, Tokyo
“Un petit peu…encore” DAIMARU, Tokyo
2025
“Pop Bridge: Korea × Japan” Geumsaem Art Museum at Geumjeong Cultural Center, South Korea
“PARTY vol.1” DAIMARU, Tokyo
“ART FAIR TOKYO” Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo
2024
“Emotional Garden” Mozuku Gallery, Taiwan
“HANKYU ART FAIR” Hankyu Umeda, Osaka
“Kyoto Art for Tomorrow 2024” The Museum of Kyoto, Kyoto
“Bottle Mail on the Roadside” Cohju, Kyoto
“ART FAIR TOKYO” Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo
2023
“ART MARKET 2023” DAIKANYAMA TSUTAYA BOOKS, Tokyo
“grid2” biscuit gallery, Tokyo
“(un)fair 2023” SUPERSTUDIO MAXI, Milan, Italy
“Art Collaboration Kyoto” ICC Kyoto, Kyoto
2022
“BEING AND TIME” Powerlong Art Center, Shanghai, China
“Words of Color ―Amane Ishii, Eriko Kubo, Kanna Takase, Sumire Funakoshi―” Shinjuku Takashimaya Art Gallery, Tokyo
“Change/Mind” TENSHADAI, Kyoto
“Shimogyo Machinaka Art Gallery” Kyoto Station, Kyoto
“ART FAIR TOKYO” Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo
“ARTISTS’ FAIR KYOTO 2022” The Museum of Kyoto Annex, Kyoto
2021
“Enclosed mythology” Kanna Takase & Kaori Kurosaki, Artist-in-Residence KAMONASU, Kyoto
“Contemporary Art Fair” Hankyu Umeda, Osaka
“ARTISTS’ FAIR KYOTO 2021” The Museum of Kyoto Annex, Kyoto
2020
“Art Show!” Gallery SHIBATACHO, Osaka
“Tsubo Tsubo Tsubo” Gallery Keifu, Kyoto
2019
“Kyoto Art Lounge” Starbucks Coffee Kyoto Sanjo Ohashi, Kyoto
“From the Youth” Gallery of the Youth Senbon Kitaoji, Kyoto
Press