I went to the National Museum of art in Osaka the other day, and saw a lot of inspiring stuff. The exhibition that was on was titled “Garden of Painting—Japanese Art of the 00s”:

To commemorate the fifth anniversary of the National Museum of Art, Osaka’s relocation from Expo Park to Nakanoshima, in the heart of Osaka, we are pleased to present a special exhibition titled “Garden of Painting—Japanese Art of the 00s.” In this event, we focus on new figurative painting from the last decade to showcase the vibrant activities of a younger generation of Japanese artists.

In this exhibition, we present some 200 works by 28 artists, including recent and new works, throughout the museum’s exhibition spaces in the second- and third-floor basements. Among these are the unforgettable O Jun with his witty portraits and iconography; Kobayashi Takanobu, who depicts landscapes and people shrouded in a distinctive kind of light; artists from the preceding generation such as Nara Yoshitomo, who is known for his pictures of young girls with incisive looks; up-and-coming artists like Goto Yasuka, Sakamoto Natsuko, and Atsuchi Tomoko, who were born in the 1980s; and Kusama Yayoi, who has in recent years been exploring new frontiers in painting through her use of line drawings.

Here’s a list of the things I liked the most:

Goto Yasuka, ‘yosegaki’

Nara Yoshitomo, ‘the little judge’, ‘agent orange’, ‘after the acid rain’

Hanazawa Takeo, ‘winter garden’, ‘mikrokozmosz’

Ikeda Mitsuhiro, ‘untitled’

Kato Mika, ‘canaria’, ‘cloud’

Kobayashi Takanobu, ‘forest’, ‘sunbather 8’, ‘pillow’

Ozawa Sakae, ‘Zauber/magic’, ‘the secret of the world tastes like honey’, ‘i always wanted to cry’, ‘the world becomes dream, the dream becomes world’

Kusama Yayoi

Makishima Takeshi, ‘dragonfly’, ‘replay’, ‘in motion’, ‘helios’

Sugito Hiroshi, ‘quadII’

Machida Kumi, ‘gentle people’, ‘rocking horse’

Aida Makoto, ‘picture of waterfall’

Hoki Nobuya, ‘untitled’

Sakamoto Natsuko, ’tiles’, ’tiles, shower’