Yuji Kitagawa

Yuji Kitagawa was born in Hiroshima, which is the first and one of only two cities to ever experience a nuclear bomb Growing up in such a city, he learned to confront the miseries of war, the importance of peace, and the value of life from a young age. At the age of 18, he enrolled in design school, and started creating art after being inspired by a friend, whose artwork was based around the theme of “regeneration.”
Kitagawa’s work was centered around characters he created himself. Just as he was entering his 30s, however, he had a fateful encounter with an artwork by Banksy, which changed his entire attitude towards art. He realized that art needs to be powerful enough to leave a lasting impression, and enough to make people rethink their values. This led him down the path of conceptual art, which led him to “pheromones.” His artistic style presents relaxed yet dark characters being distortedly intertwined, almost like oil floating on water This world is connected through concepts that we cannot perceive (pheromones), and each of our actions have the potential to make someone happy or unhappy. If one Japanese person does something bad in America, the image of the entire Japanese race can be tarnished. By seeing his pictures, he hopes that people all around the world remember that they are all connected to each other. He believes that we can come closer to realizing world peace, if each of us consciously lived with compassion in our hearts. Never satisfied with himself, he will continue to conceptualize new pheromones, so that there will never be another Hiroshima. Never again with such pain and suffering… that is his hope, and that is his art.
Exhibition History:
2017 Solo exhibition “Pheromone Exhibition” (Harajuku)
2018 Solo exhibition “Pheromone Exhibition Vol.2” (Harajuku)
2019 Solo exhibition “A Picture Exhibition by a Man who died once” (Harajuku)
2020 Solo exhibition “100% Pheromone Exhibition” (Harajuku)