With forms that feel somehow familiar, as if seen somewhere before, Yuya Hashizume’s works speak to the viewer’s memory through a touch reminiscent of Fujiko F. Fujio’s style. His practice emerges from a fundamental question: might all expressions be built upon imitation and convention? From his path from childhood to the present, to his newest experiments, this interview approaches the core of his creative practice.

Originality Born from Imitation: Tracing the Origin of His Practice

Artist in Studio

With forms that feel somehow familiar, as if seen somewhere before, Yuya Hashizume’s works speak to the viewer’s memory through a touch reminiscent of Fujiko F. Fujio’s style. His practice emerges from a fundamental question: might all expressions be built upon imitation and convention? From his path from childhood to the present, to his newest experiments, this interview approaches the core of his creative practice.

- Please tell us about your starting point as an artist. Were there any books, drawings, or events that influenced you when you were a child?

Hashizume: I think I’ve arrived where I am now for a very common reason: I liked drawing when I was little.

From early childhood through elementary school, I liked drawing. My teachers praised my biological observation sketches at school, and my classmates praised me when I copied Doraemon. In junior high school, I forgot all about drawing and devoted myself seriously to basketball. In high school, there were so many people better at drawing than I was that becoming an artist disappeared as an option for my future. I went on to a vocational school for fashion, and then, as an adult, joined a company that sold clothing. Because I could draw, I was put in charge of in-house design and illustration. Then I began to think that maybe I could once again make a living by drawing or making things and that brings me to where I am now.

That’s about it. When I was little, I hardly looked at books or pictures, so if anything influenced me, it was probably the anime and comedy shows that were on TV. There were no especially memorable events, and I was just a very ordinary child.

Artist’s Studio

- Your works incorporate motifs from the style of Fujiko F. Fujio. Why did Fujiko’s work resonate with you in particular?

Hashizume: The biggest reason is that I like Doraemon’s form. And not the manga version, but the Doraemon anime period voiced by Nobuyo Oyama. I’m not especially knowledgeable about the manga or anime itself, but that form is imprinted in me.

When I try to make something that would be called “original,” I think it inevitably means taking things that already exist. Things I’ve seen or experienced and expressing them through my own filter. I wanted to talk with people about something that would make them say, “That’s something we all understand, right?” So I wanted to express it through something easy to grasp. At that time, the thing closest to me was Fujiko F. Fujio’s style.

- When did you start becoming conscious of the question, “Might all expressions be built upon imitation and convention?” How did that happen?

Hashizume: My previous job was in clothing sales, and in that industry, something like a “sleeve” wasn’t invented by the company I worked for. Someone came up with the idea of a sleeve, and everyone is still making sleeves now.

This kind of thing happens all the time, but a brand at the company I worked for would make and sell a bag promoted as “original,” and then the next year another brand would release a backpack in almost exactly the same shape, and it would become more famous than ours. In that case, the latter ends up having greater recognition—that happens all the time. I lived with a vague frustration about that. I kept thinking, “Something comes from something.”

The Production Process Between “Lightness” and “Thought”

Work In Progress

- How are your works created? What does your process look like?

Hashizume: Coming up with an idea takes quite a lot of time. You could say I’m thinking constantly, all the time, in order to make something. Because of that, I may spend less time actually painting than other people do.

Now, most people think of me as “someone who paints on canvas with paint,” but in the beginning I used various methods to send out or communicate something. In terms of making the work itself, once my ideas are organized, I draft about 90 percent of it on the computer and roughly decide the colors there too, then transfer it onto canvas and apply the paint.

Work In Progress

- Are there any techniques, tools, or steps you are particularly particular about?

Hashizume: I didn’t go to art school, and no one taught me, so I don’t really know much about technique. If I don’t know how to paint something, I watch YouTube, and sometimes I adapt things from construction-related short videos on social media that show beautifully done caulking, or from videos of people neatly trimming gardens. As for tools, if someone I know recommends something, I try it, and if it’s easy to use, I keep using it. I use a lot of 100-yen shop tools too. My process is probably all over the place.

What I try to keep in mind is that I’d like to move people using methods that anyone could use, and that I want to believe that if you do a lot of work, you do get better. At exhibitions, visitors ask me, “How can I draw like this?” and I tell them, “If you do enough of it, everyone gets better.” Or rather, I want to believe in myself. I think the thinking part is different, though—that’s only in terms of technique. Things like color, I think, are not technique but “thought” and “experience.”

Artist’s Studio

- For your new works, you are using a paper called “Naoron.” Could you tell us about its characteristics, why you chose it, and how material affects expression?

Hashizume: Until now, I had been buying canvases from suppliers and making works on them—canvases made by someone else.

This time, I simply wanted to do something like those signs you often see at roadside stations in Japan that say, “This cabbage was grown by this person!” Also, I had gotten a little tired of the whole “Look at this thick canvas!” or “This is what an artwork is!” kind of thing. I wanted to make work that felt a little more “light.”

So I thought back on the materials I had encountered in my life, and one material I had touched before was this Naoron. You can identify the producer, it’s a Japanese paper, it can be sewn, and even when it wrinkles it creates a nice texture, so I wanted to try using it. This isn’t experimental to an extreme degree, but it is a new attempt, and I’m making these works hoping they can be displayed more casually and fit into Japanese homes as well. So I don’t know what will happen yet.

A Shift in Perspective Through “Relationship”

Work In Progress

- Why did you choose “Relationship” as the theme of this exhibition?

Hashizume: I’m thinking about this “relationship” in a very broad sense. The idea at the foundation of my practice—“something comes from something”—also comes from relationships, and no matter how much a person likes being alone, they can’t cut off every relationship.

An artist I respect said in an interview that there was a time when they weren’t conscious of the audience, and I thought that sounded cool, so I tried following that idea too. But when you present work, there is an audience, after all. So I thought “relationship” was essential, and that’s why I chose it as the theme.

Artist’s Studio

- This exhibition seems to take a considerably different approach from your previous ones. What prompted that change?

Hashizume: Personally, I don’t think my approach has changed that much. I can’t make something completely outlandish. But the amount I make and the speed at which I make it have changed, so I reconsidered the materials. Also, this time I wanted people in Japan to see works that I had previously presented overseas. Since I’m exhibiting in Japan, after all.

I used to think, without any embarrassment, that “artists are special,” but with my age and the feeling of living in a time when everyone is putting things out into the world, I’ve come to feel that “everyone is an artist, in a way.” Maybe that shift in thinking has changed what I make. I say that while still having a modest sense of pride as an artist, of course.

Work in Progress

Though Hashizume says this with a slightly joking smile, there is a consistent philosophy at the root of his practice, and it is carried through into action. The question about originality that emerged from his experience in the clothing industry forms the foundation of his work and quietly asks viewers what “original” really means. That question then expands into the larger theme of “relationship,” suggesting that new forms of expression are born within connections to all kinds of others, including the audience.

Yuya Hashizume’s solo exhibition Relationship will open at Whitestone Gallery Karuizawa on April 25, 2026. His works can also be viewed in the exhibition Connect and Expand(Crossing Borders and Expanding Fields of Expression), currently on view at Karuizawa New Art Museum, located in the same facility.

Yuya Hashizume: Relationship

Connect and Expand