GALLERY MoMo Ryogoku is pleased to present “Let’s Pink! 6”, a group exhibition curated and organized by artist Satoshi Osada, on view from Saturday, January 17 to Saturday, February 14, 2026.

This exhibition is the sixth installment of a series themed around the color pink, previously held three times in Tokyo between 2009 and 2010, and twice in Okinawa in 2014 and 2024. Marking the first Tokyo edition in sixteen years, this iteration brings together six artists who each explore the diverse expressions and renewed possibilities embodied by the color pink.

Osada approaches pink not merely as a symbol of cuteness, but as a color capable of gently enveloping people and the world, at times carrying a sense of festivity or spirituality. The series has continued as a platform for artists to engage with pink in their own ways and to present unique worlds that emerge from that dialogue.

We invite you to experience the varied interpretations of pink brought forth by each participating artist.

“Let’s Pink!” is an exhibition that was held three times in Tokyo between 2009 and 2010, and for the fourth and fifth times in 2014 and 2024 at Gallery Lafayette in Okinawa.This exhibition adopts “pink” as its theme color, consciously engaging with expressions that use “pink” and attempting to draw out the color’s abundant charm. Participating artists share the theme of “pink” and explore new possibilities inherent in this color. Pink is said to have healing effects, to promote the secretion of female hormones, and to create a sense of calm, but beyond these effects, the color can present many different expressions depending on how it is expressed and perceived.

There are moments when one may feel enveloped by the depth of “pink,” and moments when one may be surprised by unexpected qualities of the color.

This sixth edition will be held in Tokyo for the first time in 16 years, since the third exhibition.The participating artists are six in total: three based in the Kanto region and Nagano—Fumiaki Akabane, Ayano Kaeba, and Osamu Watanabe—and three based in Okinawa—Satoshi Osada, Daichi Sato, and Erika Yamashiro. I would like to highlight Akabane and Sato, who are participating for the first time.

Akabane focuses primarily on painting, yet in recent years has developed works incorporating materials such as sand, hemp fiber, beeswax, and substances reminiscent of “soil.” His solo exhibition Rotten Symphony features “anthropomorphized plants and fungi,” and is described as depicting a world that contains the fundamental desires and contradictions of human beings. For him, the “human body” and “living beings” are not isolated individuals but parts of a system connected to forests, soil, fungi, and microorganisms—a relationship he seeks to visualize through painting.

Sato is based in Okinawa, yet possesses a global perspective. In his paintings, characters quietly engage in conversation or appear as though performing music, creating scenes in which “the blink of time” and “stories within the margins” can be felt despite the still imagery. By adding extraordinary elements to seemingly ordinary scenery and motifs, he generates a “coexistence of déjà vu and unfamiliarity.” When classical pictorial elements such as composition, allegory, and narrative overlap with images shaped by the pop and internet age, a sense of “displacement” emerges—an experience that reveals the depth of his work.

A shared characteristic of Akabane’s and Sato’s works is the way motifs or elements that appear contradictory become connected or overlap. Through these connections and overlaps, viewers standing before their works may feel as if they have entered into the paintings themselves—experiencing the unreal world vividly, as though becoming inhabitants of it. In a contemporary era where connection and overlap among people, objects, and events are growing increasingly tenuous, their works remind us of the importance of such relationships. By exhibiting Akabane’s and Sato’s “pink” works together in the same gallery, we hope that their works will connect and overlap with one another as well, offering viewers the chance to experience new charms and expressions of “pink.”Additionally, all six artists—including Kaeba, Yamashiro, Watanabe, and Osada—share a common characteristic: their range of expression exceeds any single medium or genre.

As the organizer, I (Osada) moved from Tokyo, where I had lived for 13 years, to Okinawa in 2013. In Okinawa—a new home with a warm climate, warm people, and generous inclusiveness—I have sought new possibilities as an artist. Coincidentally, this pursuit overlaps with the concept of “Let’s Pink!”, which seeks new possibilities in the color “pink,” a color that envelops and fascinates people. While the fifth exhibition was held in Okinawa in 2024, ten years after the previous edition, I feel great joy and purpose in presenting the sixth edition in Tokyo, where the works of Okinawa-based artists can be introduced alongside those of artists from other regions.

Satoshi Osada, Organizer of “Let’s Pink!”

Fumiaki Akahane

©2025 Fumiaki Akahane

Photo Go Itami, Courtesy of CAVE-AYUMI GALLERY

 Akahane, who seeks to affirm life through painting, has long depicted worlds in which the overwhelming energy of diverse organisms becomes a motif, and in which human beings’ fundamental desires and contradictions are embedded. The anthropomorphized plants and fungi speak to the viewer with a sense of familiarity, while the organically swelling paint textures and colors reveal expressions that are dynamic yet raw and delicate—evoking living entities that are continuously reborn through small, interconnected chains.

Akahane describes his own process as “gathering paint like a dung beetle and being led by the paint as I work.” His works allow viewers not only to encounter the motifs themselves but also to glimpse his process: entering into the painting, manipulating the paint as it shifts, and creating as though immersed within the work.

Satoshi Osada

©Satoshi Osada, Photo:Yutaka Nozawa

​The themes of my work include transience, frailty, ambiguity, lightness, wistfulness, loneliness, delicacy, and a sense of insufficiency. These qualities can be considered characteristic aspects of Japanese sensibility and emotion. Through lightly applied colored pencil, fine and slender lines, and dripping techniques, I express elements such as transience, fragility, wistfulness, and delicacy.

The series of “lightly drawn colored-pencil works” began with an experimental drawing created around 2009. Since resuming this approach around 2020, several new bodies of work have gradually emerged—such as collages incorporating cut pieces of newspaper onto the drawing, adding handwritten waka poems, and painting on clay surfaces.

Ayano Kaeba

©Ayano Kaeba

 I create paintings on supports of various shapes—such as cut plywood, canvas, and paper—interweaving contemporary and personal narratives while incorporating textiles and classical patterns.

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When I touch a cold fence,I am reminded of the things woven within myself.Even as I wish to release the chains that feel like a curse,they sometimes soothe me, gently leaning close.Entangled with memory and everyday life,these soft chains shift their form like living creatures,holding within them the colors of my inner world.

Daichi Sato

©Daichi Sato

Drawing from the influences of classical painters such as Jan van Eyck, Nicolas Poussin, and Édouard Manet, as well as Japanese masters like Tawaraya Sōtatsu, he develops motifs inspired by film and pop music.In works where lines of dialogue seem to emanate from paintings that should, by nature, be silent, one senses the artist’s wish: that viewers, like himself, may relax, let go of tension, and come to live happily and authentically, true to who they are.

1985 Born in Saitama Prefecture, Japan2009 Graduated from Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Oil PaintingCurrent Based in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan

Erika Yamashiro

©Erika Yamashiro

She creates feminine and fantastical worlds with an elegant and decorative touch, weaving a sense of narrative into each work. She has exhibited widely in Tokyo, Okinawa, Los Angeles, Miami, Hong Kong, and other cities.

Her illustrations include numerous book covers for Akutagawa Prize and Naoki Prize-winning authors, and in 2015 she provided artwork for Hitomi Kanehara’s serialized novel in The Asahi Shimbun.

In 2018, her work was featured in the 10th Anniversary Exhibition of the Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum, with one piece selected for the museum’s premium anniversary ticket. Her work is now part of the museum’s permanent collection.

Osamu Watanabe

©Osamu Watanabe

Recognized as a pioneer who has elevated the techniques of “sweets deco” to the level of art, she has been featured on programs such as Tokyo Kawaii TV (NHK) and Tetsuko no Heya Special (TV Asahi). Her works, crafted with colorful and meticulously detailed creams, candies, and fruits that appear strikingly lifelike, have drawn attention both in Japan and abroad, with solo exhibitions in China, Indonesia, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, the United States, South Korea, and other countries.

In addition to three published art books, her works are held in the collections of nine museums in Japan, including the Ohara Museum of Art and the Kasama Nichido Museum of Art.

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The color pink, for her, is not merely a symbol of cuteness; it also illuminates the spirituality of Mexican culture, reflecting rituals of celebration, prayer, and the cyclical passage between life and death. The vivid colors exemplified by architect Luis Barragán are said to arise from Mexico’s embrace of life in its entirety, a bright acceptance of death rather than its denial. Religious decorations such as crosses and hearts covering walls, and the veneration of ancestors symbolized by the Day of the Dead, all convey a faith in the power of color—not mourning, but blessing.

Inspired by this Mexican decorative culture, she has developed a new concept called Ultra Sweets Baroque. Referencing the extravagance of Mexican “Ultra Baroque,” she reconstructs symbolic motifs such as skulls, Madonnas, hearts, and crosses using the textures and materials of sweets. By intersecting this decorative language—often associated with sweetness and lightness—with themes of mortality and prayer, she aims to evoke a sense of “celebratory life” through the vivid power of pink.