Rieko Hidaka Space, natural light, painting
Rieko Hidaka
$47.36 (+tax)
*Available late September 2026. Pre-order now.
This book features photographs taken by Risaku Suzuki of two exhibitions in which the painter Rieko Hidaka’s works were shown under natural light, along with two texts by Noi Sawaragi.
“Iemura Seminar 2023: with Rieko Hidaka’s Paintings in Natural Light,” held at Tama Art University’s Art-Theque Gallery in 2023, was an experimental endeavor to essentially show a single work per space, lit only by natural light. Building on that experience, “Rieko Hidaka Retirement Exhibition: Space, natural light, painting,” was held at the same gallery in 2025, exploring Hidaka’s ideas on the act of “seeing,” her thoughts about painting, and her sense of spatiality through the actual space and light themselves. Here, the two exhibitions take the form of photographs captured by Risaku Suzuki, a photographer whose work has continually questioned what it means to see. Through Suzuki’s vision, Hidaka’s vision—and the relationships among the paintings, space, and light—emerge all the more vividly, while the shifting of the viewpoint brings out varying forms of expression and ways of looking within the same painting. Hidaka’s distinctive upward-looking paintings depicting “the space of trees” in order to illustrate “the sky” prompt the viewers to a new experience of seeing trees and sky. Sawaragi confronted Hidaka’s paintings and their installation with his own body and perception, in two experimental texts that go well beyond simply contributing an essay.
The designer Yuri Suyama, meanwhile, has gathered what she saw, experienced, and felt at the exhibitions into a form that exceeds the usual framework of an exhibition catalogue. In the book, paintings, photographs, and texts stand independently while remaining in close connection to one another—the result is a volume unlike any other.
Exhibition
“Rieko Hidaka”
Venue 1
Tomio Koyama Gallery Roppongi
complex665 2F, 6-5-24 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
September 26 (Sat)–November 8 (Sun), 2026
11:00–19:00, closed Sundays, Mondays, and public holidays
(*Open on the final day, Sunday, November 8)
Venue 2
Tomio Koyama Gallery Kyobashi
TODA BUILDING 3F, 1-7-1 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
September 26 (Sat)–November 8 (Sun), 2026
11:00–19:00, closed Sundays, Mondays, and public holidays
(*Open on the final day, Sunday, November 8)
Size: 288 x 222mm / Soft cover / 120P
Photographs: Risaku Suzuki
Text: Noi Sawaragi, Rieko Hidaka
Design: Yuri Suyama
Cooperation: Tomio Koyama Gallery
Languages: Japanese / English
Price: 7,000 yen
Publisher: torch press
ISBN: 978-4-907562-69-4
Year: 2026
Rieko Hidaka
Painter. Born in Tokyo in 1958. She graduated from the Department of Japanese Painting, College of Art and Design, Musashino Art University (BFA) in 1983, and completed the Graduate School of Art and Design, Musashino Art University (MFA) in 1985. From 1995 to 1996, she resided in Germany as a fellow of the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Overseas Study Program for Artists. From 2009 to 2026, she served as a professor in the Oil Painting Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Tama Art University. She has participated in numerous exhibitions both in Japan and abroad. Major solo exhibitions include “Recent Works 22” (The National Museum of Art, Osaka, 1998), “The Space of Trees” (Art Kite Museum, Germany, 2003), “TREES” (Northland Museum of Art, Hokkaido, 2004), “Sky, Trees and In Between” (Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuoka, 2017), and “Rieko Hidaka Retirement Exhibition: Space, natural light, painting” (Tama Art University Hachioji Campus Art-Theque Gallery, Tokyo, 2025). Her works are held in the collections of major museums, including the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo and the National Museum of Art, Osaka.
