NEW New Artists / NEW Backbone Artists 2025

This group of six artists has come together to present an exhibition about karaoke, a highly popular contemporary activity and entertainment facility. They are currently based in Chiba, Kanagawa, Ibaraki, and Tokyo (listed roughly in order of the number of members in each area). For each artist’s go-to karaoke song, please refer to their individual profiles, which will be shared online later. 

An artist unit formed in 2024 by Tomoya Fujii and Chikaya Takahashi. Their practice focuses on picking up introspective moments that arise within domestic environments and familiar events in daily life, developing them into works that explore the relationship between individual and collective identity in contemporary society.They had exhibitions such as Trans-비전 Vision (YK PRESENTS, Seoul, 2025), 150 Years (Tokyo, 2025), and Self Care / self care (Syndicate, Kagawa, 2024).They are recipients of the 2025 Agency for Cultural Affairs Media Arts Creator Development Support Program (Japan).
http://www.ormproject.com

Hikari Mukai（Maki Katayama Prize）
Born in 1998. Graduated from the Department of Sculpture, Musashino Art University in 2022. Her work spans sculpture, video, and other media, exploring themes that can only be perceived by connecting seemingly unrelated elements and giving them form outside the body.　For example: the coldness felt on one’s face when burying it into freshly dried, warm laundry; the sight of a partner speaking about a beloved dog; or the sensation of a world divided by the speed of a passing train. When these experiences are interwoven, the image of pressing one’s face into fast-spinning golden fur emerges. By manifesting this image in the work Fast Dog (Hayainu), she realized that she had been perceiving “the lovable absurdity of watching others operating at full force, with all their intensity and at the same time a complete disconnection from oneself—something so endearing it makes you laugh.”

Major solo exhibitions include The Names on the Beach: Solo Exhibition of the 1st BUG Art Award Grand Prix Winner (2025) and Link Skater (2023).

Shintaro Uramaru（Fuyuhiko Takahata Prize）
Born in Saga Prefecture in 1993. He experienced sexual abuse from relatives during childhood. At the age of 17, when he confided in a friend who had gone through a similar experience, he felt as though their still-open wounds were being stitched closed and healed. Since then, he has used the motif of wounds in his practice, employing needle and thread as a means to mend severed connections. Through embroidered works and objects made by stitching together photographic transfers of the body onto fabric, as well as performances that engage his own body as a medium, he gathers fragile, nearly-lost memories and emotions, reweaving them into his works.

 Yasunori Kidani（Tomonosuke Kurachi Prize）
Born in Ishikawa Prefecture in 1963. Painter and picture book author. Graduated from the Department of Oil Painting, Kanazawa College of Art, and completed his Master’s degree in Art Studies at Tokyo University of the Arts. His artistic practice centers on themes such as “creating sparks of imagination” and “the art of a child’s heart.” He is also well-regarded for leading narrative-based corporate training programs through art.

His solo exhibitions include Dream Girls (Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, New York) and Nice to Meet You at the Intersection #4: Yasunori Kitani (ONVO SALON URAWA, Saitama). In 2015, he debuted as a picture book author under the pen name “Yasunori Kidani” and has since published 15 titles. Since 2017, he has participated as a painter and researcher in the “Nursery School Museum Project” at Aozora Nursery School in Hamura, Tokyo. He is currently Professor in the Department of Early Childhood Education at Kawaguchi Junior College, where he teaches courses on expression, art, and crafts.

Hitomi Usui（Ana Scripcariu-Ochiai Prize）
Born in Tokyo. After graduating from university with a degree in Marine Biological Resources Science, she entered Tokyo University of the Arts in 2004 and completed her graduate studies there in 2010. Major solo exhibitions include Yamaha Kura, Town Timbers, and Shaved Trees (Akita City Cultural Creation Center, 2022). She has also participated in international residency programs, including HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme (2017) and Nordic Artists’ Centre in Dale (2025).

Imagining a prehistoric “Wooden Age,” her practice and research explore the relationship between humans and plants, as well as folklore. For her, making is a way of understanding others, including the nonhuman, and her works reflect both human activity and the forms of living beings in relation to one another. In recent years, she has focused on carving into wooden objects—tools and vessels once given roles by humans—to reveal that they “remain wood nonetheless,” thereby drawing attention to the intertwined memories of wood and people.