Curation Note
This exhibition marks the second presentation (Vol.2) of a curatorial series inspired by Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. The first exhibition, A Room of Her Own: Asian Women, Tokyo Sensibility — from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (July 2025), explored the theme of “the room” through the perspectives of women artists working primarily in Tokyo.
In Vol.2, two female artists turn to the shared motif of the forest, each exploring a different world through her own “window.” A forest is a place where light refracts, ecosystems overlap, and unseen forms of life circulate quietly. Though a single subject, it reveals entirely different faces depending on one’s distance and point of view—a discreet and intimate world shaped by perception.
Arisa Nakabayashi (Japanese, b. 1992) approaches contemporary Japanese society through motifs of plants and human figures. In this exhibition, she presents the forest as a wide, panoramic landscape.Her paintings weave together the qualities of light, humidity, temperature, and the density of air, creating dramatic scenes that blur the boundary between figuration and abstraction. Through swift brushstrokes and bleeding textures, she captures the forest’s rhythm as it breathes and transforms daily, allowing delicate shifts and latent presences within the distant landscape to surface.Nakabayashi’s work also holds a quiet coexistence between partial viewpoints and an overarching, panoramic gaze. The sensibility of a “narrator” observing the world from within the landscape overlaps with the distance of an external observer. Through this layering of perspectives, the forest is transformed into a multi-dimensional psychological space.
Namu Choi (Korean, b. 1978) captures the forest through a gently shifting gaze that moves between close-up and mid-range perspectives. With bold colors and layered surfaces, she renders the tension and primordial vitality that nature emits at close proximity to the body.
Her works are deeply infused with the strategies inherent in plant life—modes of survival, camouflage, responsiveness to external threats, and the resilience to adapt form in response to environment. Vivid layers of primary colors and thick material textures visualize the constant negotiations of survival within the forest, generating an intensity that directly engages the viewer’s bodily senses. This world emerges as a raw psychological landscape where subtle tremors and taut tension coexist—visible only through close observation.
The contrast between the two artists’ approaches invites viewers into a layered reading of the works, vividly demonstrating how the forest—though a universal form of nature—can transform into an intimate and deeply personal experience.
The exhibition title draws from Virginia Woolf’s proposition of A Room of One’s Own, a space essential for women’s freedom of vision and creativity. As these two artists gaze upon the forest through their respective “windows,” Woolf’s ideas are brought into the present, revealing a subtle yet resonant dialogue between subject and perception.
Visitors are invited to experience the forest landscapes that intersect through these two windows, encountering the diversity of women’s perspectives and sensibilities in three dimensions, and to rediscover the richness and creative potential inherent in women’s artistic expression.
■𝗘𝘅𝗵𝗶𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄
・Duration｜March 12 - March 15 2026
・Venue｜Tokyo International Forum, Hall E and Lobby Gallery, 3-Chome-5-1 Marunouchi Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0005 Japan
1-minutes walk from JR/Subway Yurakucho Station, 5-minutes walk from JR Tokyo Station (Keiyo Line)
・Schedule l
VIP: March 12 (Thr)
General:
March 13 (Fri): 11:00-19:00 (Last admission 18:30)
March 14 (Sat): 11:00-19:00 (Last admission 18:30)
March 15 (Sun): 11:00-17:00 (Last admission 16:30)
・Inquiry｜infoalphacontemporary@gmail.com