Barbara Seiler Galerie is pleased to present Here and Elsewhere, the second solo exhibition by Japanese artist Tenki Hiramatsu (b. 1986, Wakayama, JP) with the gallery. This exhibition brings together a new body of work that reflects Hiramatsu’s introspective approach to painting, where abstraction and figuration coexist in layers of shifting focus and narratives suspended in mystery.

In the artist’s words, and reverberating the title of his previous exhibition at the gallery, Should I wait for everyone to wake up or should I wake up first? encapsulates his mindset in the studio. Hiramatsu’s process involves applying and reworking oil paint on wooden panels, and in more recent time, increasingly on canvas —rotating the work in 90° increments and layering pigments over weeks or months. This iterative method, as unpredictable as it is deliberate, invites a dialogue between control and chance, resulting in paintings that feel simultaneously immediate and deeply contemplative.

The figures and forms in Hiramatsu’s works evoke fleeting moments of communication—enigmatic figures, animals, and abstract shapes appear as if mid-conversation. Often grouped in twos or threes, these entities project moods through a nuanced palette: earthy greens and browns suggest unease, while luminous pinks and yellows radiate joy. Blue hues, by contrast, offer meditative melancholy. Hiramatsu’s characters, rendered with a dreamlike ambiguity, seem to engage in dialogues that transcend words, speaking instead through gaze, gesture, and color.

Hiramatsu describes his creative process as an exploration of existence without purpose, echoing his belief that “any form could be for nothing.” This sentiment underpins his intuitive approach to painting: figures emerge organically from his brushstrokes, sometimes eliciting sympathy, sometimes remaining unknowable. Each work resists a definitive narrative, inviting the viewer to project their own interpretations and connections.

While Hiramatsu’s works reference universal emotions, they also interrogate the very act of seeing and understanding. His paintings challenge us to linger, to embrace ambiguity, and to find meaning in the interplay of form, color, and space. This tension—between intimacy and estrangement, clarity and obscurity—imbues his works with a haunting resonance.

Tenki Hiramatsu (b. 1986, Wakayama, JP, lives and works in Karlsruhe, DE) studied at Nihon University in Tokyo and later at Staatliche Kunstakademie Karlsruhe under Daniel Roth and Marcel van Eeden. This year, he held his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at Sebastian Gladstone, and New York at Half Gallery, and he participated in the group exhibition ‘Splendore – joie, joie, joie’ at Fondation Fernet Branca, Saint Louise, FR and a two persons exhibition at Kunstverein Wilhelmshöhe, Ettlingen, DE. He has been the recipient of the Werner-Stober Art Prize in 2023, and has shown his work in a solo exhibition at Städtische Galerie, Karlsruhe (2023). Further group exhibitions include Hive Center for Contemporary Art , Beijing, CN (2021), super Dakota, Brussels, BE (2021), Giulietta, Basel, CH (2021), James Fuentes, New York, US (2020).