Cliff Miyagi · Hideaki Fujimoto · Yuko Sato
Okinawa is a beautiful subtropical island chain in southern Japan, but beneath its turquoise waters and quiet villages lies a region armed to the teeth — like a white pointer lurking just below the surface. Life here unfolds in long stretches of stability and peace, punctuated by crises sharp enough to remind everyone why full-blown war, once unleashed on these islands, is never forgotten. In this most beautiful terrain, memory and danger coexist uneasily.
For the three artists presented here, Okinawa is home. This is evident in their work, sensorially adorned with tropical hues that dance, glisten, and caress the lush landscape. Emerald greens and manganese blues of the subtropical ocean and terrain pulse through their paintings. Their most important commonality, however, is a developing system of painting — a growing aesthetic sensibility that is carrying them toward unknown painterly horizons.
Connecting Theory to Practice
For these artists, the “engine room” of sensibility is the unique atmosphere of Okinawa. Delay — the timeless space between what is sighted and the moment paint touches canvas or paper — is the cultivated muscle through which the island’s vibrant colours are processed. This is not passive observation, but a deliberate slowing down.
When confronted with the lush landscape, they inhabit the interval between seeing the subtropical light and placing it on the canvas. This is the Two-Dogs Art-Space Axiom in action: the physical event of the Okinawan sun striking water becomes a “lived, spatial encounter” through their painterly systems. By inhabiting delay, they move beyond representation and push outward toward their own evolving aesthetic horizons — an ongoing growth within studio praxis.
For example in the painting Layers of Colour 2504 (acrylic on canvas, 33.5 × 33.3 × 2.5 cm) by Hideaki Fujimoto, the artist exhibits his most refined sensibility in painting. It is exquisite how he layers flat acrylic paint drawn from memories of Okinawa: oceanic greyish turquoise blues are juxtaposed with tropical flowering hues of peach and orange, intermittent cherry-plum reds, and lush, vibrant vegetational greens. The work is a visual delight — an expression of the artist’s memory translated into colour.
This exhibition is particularly engaging in the way the gallery curator has positioned the artworks to emphasise not only how each artist records place through painting, but also how their approaches have evolved over time. For those in Kobe, it is well worth visiting.
Link to Gallery Yamaki exhibition in Japanese
https://gyfa.co.jp/exhibition/horizons-of-sensibility-visual-gatewas-from-okinawa.html
Further reading on the Two Dogs Art Space Axiom
https://2dogsartspaceakashi.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-two-dogs-art-space-axiom.html














