Artists

Yukimasa Ida is a contemporary Japanese artist whose practice spans painting and sculpture, moving fluidly between abstraction and realism. Best known for his distorted, vividly colored portraits, Ida explores the tension between presence and impermanence. His thickly layered canvases, sometimes verging on sculptural relief, and his bronze heads—scored with marks that echo the stroke of a palette knife—embody both ambiguity and intensity, inviting viewers into moments suspended between the familiar and the estranged.

Central to Ida’s practice is the Japanese concept of ichi-go ichi-e (“one time, one meeting”), the notion that each encounter is unique and unrepeatable. Through this lens, his work reflects on the fleeting nature of human experience and the subtle beauty of transience. The irregularity of his surfaces and the exuberance of his color harmonies generate compositions that are at once subversive, nostalgic, and futuristic.

Ida received his MFA in Oil Painting from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2019. He has exhibited widely in Japan and internationally, with solo and group shows at Kaikai Kiki Gallery (Tokyo), Perrotin (Paris), and Fabien Fryns Fine Art (London), among others. His recent solo museum exhibitions include Portraits of Time at the Yonago City Museum of Art (2023) and a survey at the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art (2023). Ida has received numerous accolades, including the Arts in Marunouchi Grand Prix (2015) and the CAF Special Jury Award (2016).