9s Gallery is pleased to present" JohDaism_GENESIS," a solo exhibition of Jodai Watanabe from Friday, 12/12/2025 to Sunday, 21/12/2025.
Born in Ehime, Japan in 1983.
After working as a manga artist's assistant, he attempts to connect the technique and concept of Japanese manga to art history.
Of the world's three major comic books (Japanese manga, bande dessinée, and American comics), the predominance of black and white expression is a characteristic of Japanese manga.
With its roots in Katsushika Hokusai's Hokusai manga, Japanese manga has evolved from ukiyoe and certainly inherits the blood of ukiyoe in terms of expression through lines and the aesthetics of margins.
The word "ukiyo" means "this world" or "the world in transition," and "ukiyoe" is a painting by an artist of the Edo period that depicts the conditions of the time using the techniques of the time.
Ukiyo-e" is defined as "Contemporary Ukiyo-E", which is derived from the Japanese manga technique to depict the modern world.
Statement
9s Gallery is pleased to present "JohDaism_GENESIS," a solo exhibition of Jodai Watanabe from Friday, 2025/12/12 to Sunday, 2025/12/21.
This exhibition will be a new chapter in the artist's career, further deepening the connection between Japanese manga techniques and contemporary art, which he has been exploring for many years.
Based on his experience as a manga artist's assistant, he has defined "modern ukiyoe" as the use of Japanese manga techniques to depict the contemporary, and has reconstructed the structural elements of manga, such as line, margin, composition, and time expression, in his pictorial expression.
In this exhibition, in addition to his representative work "JD-girl," he will present his "Color Chart" series, in which he expresses complex color tones by applying color to the screen tone dots that produce intermediate colors in black and white Japanese manga, and his "Composition" series, which extracts the concept of manga-like composition and effect lines, to show "Ukiyoe" as an expression of the "manga culture" that lies at the root of manga culture. The exhibition will also present the techniques and idiosyncrasies of expression that are often overlooked.
This exhibition is not merely the beginning of a new series, but also an attempt to re-launch the cultural gene of Japanese manga on the stage of contemporary art.
In the exhibited works, digital and analog, subjective and objective, such as precise depiction and accidental blurring, intersect, and the artist's philosophy quietly breathes.
We hope that each and every viewer will have the opportunity to rediscover the power of "manga" as a form of expression and feel the richness of its expanding worldview.
Exhibition Outline
- Dates: Friday, 2025/12/12 to Sunday, 2025/12/21
- Opening hours: 12:00 - 19:00
- Venue:9s Gallery
- Kasumicho Terrace 6F, 3-24-20 Nishiazabu, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0031
- Access: 9 minutes walk from Roppongi station on Tokyo Metro Hibiya line, 10 minutes walk from Hiroo station on Tokyo Metro Hibiya line, 10 minutes walk from Nogizaka station on Tokyo Metro Chiyoda line
- Contact: 03-5422-8370
