An exhibition by contemporary artist Tabaimo titled “Tabaimo Paintings: National Treasures”

Starting July 17th (Friday)

The Pola Museum Annex (Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo) will host "Tabaimo Paintings: National Treasures," an exhibition by contemporary artist Tabaimo, from July 17th (Fri) to August 30th (Sun), 2026.

Pola Museum Annex: "Tabaimo Paintings – National Treasure"

This exhibition will display all 500 illustrations created by Tabaimo for the novel "National Treasure" by Shuichi Yoshida, which was serialized in the Asahi Shimbun from 2017 to 2018, in two phases.

When the series was being serialized, Tabaimo first drew line drawings in ink, and then, while reading the story of the novel, she layered the emotions and atmosphere of each scene as colors. She says that the process of placing colors on top of the lines naturally reflected not only the world of the story, but also her own feelings and physicality at the time. For the newspaper submission, the colors were digitally composited, but for this exhibition, Tabaimo re-colored the lines drawn on Japanese paper, completing the work. She says that the act of layering colors while recalling the feelings of that time with her current body, using the lines and images drawn about 10 years ago as a guide, gave her the feeling of reconnecting with the work across time, and also brought new discoveries and enjoyment.

We hope that through works created within the ever-changing medium of newspapers, you will find this a valuable opportunity to see the past and present, literature and art, and personal memories and bodily sensations intersect. Please experience Tabaimo's unique worldview, which emerges as stories and images intersect.

|| Exhibition Overview ||

Title: "Tabaimo Paintings: National Treasure"
Period: [First half] July 17th (Friday) – August 9th (Sunday), 2026
[Second Period] August 11th (Tue, National Holiday) – August 30th (Sun), 2026 *Closed on August 10th (Mon)
Hours: 11:00 – 19:00 (Last entry at 18:30)
Admission: Free Venue: Pola Museum Annex (3rd Floor, Pola Ginza Building, 1-7-7 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061)
Official website : http://www.po-holdings.co.jp/m-annex/
Organized by: Pola Orbis Holdings Inc. Supported by: Gallery Koyanagi, Furniture Shop Riemon

*Please note that the content may change due to various circumstances. Please check the gallery's website for the latest information before visiting.

|| Author Profile ||

Tabaimo (a type of potato)
A contemporary artist, known for his installations that combine hand-drawn animation with a unique rhythm and color palette reminiscent of Ukiyo-e prints. His style surrealistically depicts the distortions of modern society and human psychology within ordinary everyday scenes. Since his debut in 1999, he has exhibited at numerous international exhibitions, and in 2011, he was selected as the representative artist for the Japanese pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale.

His artistic expression spans a wide range of fields, from creating stage productions to collaborating with overseas animation artists on large-scale installations. He has actively engaged in collaborations with artists from different genres, continuously exploring new relationships between space and the body.

In recent years, she has continued to create works based on themes such as memories within herself and the passage of time that permeates familiar objects.

|| Artist Statement ||

I'm not good at drawing. In particular, drawing as an act of expressing what's inside me is not just something I'm bad at, but almost impossible for me. So, when I do draw, I need to build a system to get my hands moving. And even before that, I need a reason for drawing in the first place. At this point, I'm starting to doubt whether I'm even an artist.

Receiving a request to illustrate a newspaper series about "national treasures" gave me a reason to paint. The next step is "building a system." How do I use my body and some kind of drawing tool to transform an image into a single painting?

About ten years before the newspaper serialization of "National Treasure," I had the opportunity to illustrate the serialization of "The Villain," also by Shuichi Yoshida, and I wanted to capture this rare connection by following part of the system from that time. I set the timeline from right to left on a horizontal sheet of Japanese paper, and in some images, I depicted them in a way that they connected across days. I used this method, which shows how the story of the previous day influences the story of the next day through a direct connection, in "National Treasure" as well as in "The Villain."

On the other hand, I wanted to create something that would give a completely different impression from "The Villain" by changing the system (the actual drawing method) used to fix the image in the painting. Instead of the undulating lines that made a strong impression in "The Villain," I adopted lines that maintained a consistent thinness for "National Treasure."
Then, I translated intangible elements, such as the atmosphere of a novel and the emotions of its characters, into colors. By assigning different roles to lines and colors, I aimed to create images where delicacy and boldness coexist, even in the small spaces of illustrations on a page.

Back then, the colors that had been lost as data due to the constraints of the newspaper format were now, 10 years later, fixed onto the vast number of line drawings that remained in my possession, this time using physical paints.
In this way, by creating rules and systems that I feel are necessary, I can finally "draw pictures."

The image, fixed on the washi paper over time, is far more powerful than I had imagined, and once again it draws me deep into the story.

Tabaimo