Yuichi Hirako: POSTFOREST

About the exhibition

Sculptures hang from floor to ceiling in part of the gallery, so you walk among floating forms. Gallery Baton compares this to moving through a forest, and it is the first time Yuichi Hirako has shown suspended sculpture. The show also has new 2026 acrylics on canvas from the Lost in Thought and Green Master series and the Wooden Wood works, painted in acrylic on wood. Noland 02, a mixed-media piece, measures 250 by 600 by 20 centimeters.

This is Hirako's third solo show at the gallery. It treats the forest as nature and also as a human setting, where stories get told, communities form and people stay anonymous. Human-like figures lead unhurried lives there, with dogs, cats and plants as supporting characters.

The gallery links the artist's outlook to deep ecology, a philosophy that treats nature as independent and equal to people. The title reflects the view that this relationship has changed and will keep changing.

About the artist

Yuichi Hirako (b. 1982) was born and raised in Okayama Prefecture, Japan, and lives and works in Tokyo. While studying at Wimbledon College of Art in London, the artist began asking why city green spaces and indoor plants exist. The work looks at how people, plants and animals depend on one another. Tree, Forest, Mountain, a ring of hybrid sculptures on a circular platform, was first shown at the Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art in 2025. Other solo shows include Space K Seoul (2023) and Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery (2018).

Sources: Gallery Baton: Yuichi Hirako · Gallery Baton: POSTFOREST