This summer, Tokyo-based artist Yuki Nagashima is presenting her latest body of work in a solo exhibition titled When the sun sleeps, the moon dances. The show runs from July 12 to August 9, 2025, at AKIINOUE (THE ROWS 2F, Daikanyama, Shibuya-ku), with an opening reception on July 12.
Born in Tokyo in 1989 and a graduate of Tama Art University, Nagashima has built an international practice rooted in printmaking. Her residencies have taken her from Zea Mays Printmaking in the United States to the Ratamo Printmaking and Photography Centre in Finland, and her works are now held in collections including the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and the Jyväskylä Art Museum.
For this exhibition, Nagashima presents around twenty new monotype paintings. Monotype is a printmaking method dating back to 17th-century Italy, where pigment is painted directly onto a plate and transferred to paper, producing a single, unrepeatable image. Nagashima layers pigment across the same plate again and again, allowing traces of earlier gestures to surface in the final work. This process gives her pieces both fragility and permanence—each mark impossible to erase, every impression an accumulation of time and memory.
The works in When the sun sleeps, the moon dances combine celestial references with human presence. Titles such as Full moon, you are, Solar Flare, Lunar Mare, and Good night, the sun evoke cosmic rhythms, while others like The Spine of the Mountains or Cracks in the Earth ground the series in the textures of the natural world. What emerges is an atmosphere of paradox—at once serene and uneasy, intimate and universal.
This exhibition began from a speculation: If the sun were to fall asleep, perhaps in that world, the moon would begin to dance. I paint as a way of reflecting on the reality that I am alive in this very moment, and that the world I inhabit exists through a continuous chain of miracles.
Her works remind us that each gesture, each action, leaves a trace that cannot be undone—yet it is in accepting this irreversibility that we discover moments of beauty. In a digital age where images can be deleted and rewritten in an instant, Nagashima’s monotypes stand as quiet, unrepeatable affirmations of presence and memory.
Here we chat with Yuki Nagashima to find out more.
What is the concept behind the exhibition?
The title of the solo exhibition is “ When the sun sleeps, the moon dances ”. This is a phrase that came to me in my imagination. I chose this title because I paint with a worldview in which the things I imagine could possibly happen.
How did the exhibition come to be?
I was an old friend of Akihito Inoue’s partner at AKIINOUE. We hadn’t seen each other for over 10 years, but she had seen my work on social media. When her partner started a gallery, she introduced my work to him, he loved it, and she contacted me. I had just finished my own training and was looking for a gallery to work for, so we were the perfect match for each other.
What works are included?
The exhibition features works created using monotype prints.
What inspired you for these pieces?
I create works to interpret this world that exists as a result of an accumulation of miracles. I created these works with the idea of considering the origins of the world, randomly picking out elements that make up the world, and scattering them around the exhibition space.
Tell us more about your working process.
I paint directly onto a PVC board and then run it through a press multiple times to create the piece. The pressure of the press is used to crush the layers of paint onto the surface. As I add more and more, the pigments rise and sink within the paper, creating unexpected effects.
When the sun sleeps, the moon dances runs through August 9, offering viewers a chance to encounter works that capture both the fleeting and the eternal in a single surface impression.
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