Takanori ISHIZUKA

Born in Kanagawa in 1970.

Takanori Ishizuka is an artist who transforms invisible “things” and “states” into charming animal characters, creating a wide range of works including drawings, paintings, sculptures, and installations. His whimsical and slightly eccentric animal figures have earned high recognition both in Japan and abroad.

Major exhibitions include “Hiten” (ROPPONGI HILLS A/D GALLERY, 2018), the Kakegawa Chaennale (2017), “totem” (nca | nichido contemporary art, 2014), “Festival of Art in the Sacred Forest of Meiji Jingu” (Meiji Jingu Museum, 2020), Discovery “Hide and Seek Kakurenbo” (Fuwari no Mori, 2021), “Park of Light” (Nazukari Warehouse, 2022), and “SMALL REBOOTS” (Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Serbia, 2022). His works are included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and the Kasama Nichido Museum of Art.

Through the forms of adorable animals, he expresses invisible phenomena and emotions that exist in everyday life. These animals appear familiar, yet they stand at the boundary between human and animal, past and present, city and nature. By doing so, they make visible the subtle presences and memories that are easily overlooked in daily life. The traces left by carving the wood, combined with the expressive gestures of the animals, attest to his high level of woodcarving skill.

Ishizuka works in a studio located in the area of Kanagawa where he was born and raised. The location was once a quiet landscape of mountains and farmland, but development has transformed it into residential neighborhoods and regulated rivers. Even amid such rapid change, faint memories of the former scenery and the lingering atmosphere of the land still remain. This setting embodies the coexistence of opposing dualities such as “past–present” and “countryside–city.” Ishizuka creates his work with an acute awareness of this dual nature and the boundaries between them.