MICHI SUWA

Artist bio

PANTALOON
May 23 - June 27, 2026
Opening Reception: May 23, 5-7pm

Michi Suwa has been making works rooted in everyday phenomena and her own physical sensations, finding small cracks in what we take for granted about the world. On square canvases, restrained color fields and geometric forms―still marked by the touch of the hand―are arranged in ways that gently unsettle assumptions such as gravity and perspective. In these works, a gap quietly emerges between the world we understand through knowledge and the world we feel through our senses.

For Suwa, PANTALOON (trousers) is not simply the name of a garment, but a device for thinking about the relationship between self and structure. Here, the habitual ways we move through the world―followed without thinking―and their relation to the structures meant to receive us, are questioned. Do we put them on starting from the right leg, or the left? In such small actions, a certain order exists―but does it belong to us, or to the structure? The slight imbalance that cannot fully settle on either side becomes the starting point of this exhibition, PANTALOON.

In this exhibition, Suwa does not depict trousers as an image. Instead, she extends this imbalance between self and structure to the very conditions that make painting possible. The square format, the crossing of fine stripes and parabolic lines, panels that slightly extend beyond the surface, the distance and positioning in relation to the floor―these elements are arranged to question how a painting is supported and how it stays in place. They speak directly to the viewer’s physical presence in the room.
When facing Suwa's works, we can no longer stop at the question of "what is depicted." Awareness shifts toward the fact of standing, the pull of gravity, the position of one's center of weight, and the subtle unease that appears on the surface. In this space, it becomes unclear whether structure or the body is correct―or whether both are correct and both are slightly off. This judgment remains suspended, as the two continue to shift and exchange roles. Suwa's works can be seen as an attempt to capture the moment when painting comes into being within this unstable relationship.

PANTALOON does not present painting as a fixed, complete image. Rather, it seeks to carefully trace the network of relations that support its formation. The viewer is led, as if drawn toward a small yet deep opening at their feet, into an uncertain space that appears between themselves and the work.

This exhibition is loosely connected to "pantaloon," held at gallery21yo-j in Jiyugaoka. While the structure in this exhibition stands out in a distinct way, in the other venue it draws closer to the body, with a stronger pull toward the center of weight. We warmly invite you to experience both exhibitions.

PANTALOON/pantaloon

Long Part

I often work in a square format to avoid the stabilization of the center of gravity. If the first gesture of art is to regard the functions and orders institutionalized by the body’s conventional needs as merely contingent, then the square becomes a structure that suspends this stance of doubt. A structure cannot help but function as repression. Yet, when I consider that very fact to be included within this suspended structure, the square postpones the fall and becomes a rung to which I can cling for a while. The possibility of imbalance remains in both the body and the structure, transferable between them.　Even so, a language that leans toward the world is still necessary—drawn by an absurd yet felicitous gravity that resists representation. Following the negation of the natural attitude, it is all too easy to witness language following a harsh fate. Still, I refuse to believe that language has abandoned me; I owe this persistence to the quiet endurance of those writers who continued to write despite knowing that fate. My sincere respect. Form stops in order to fall, and moves in order to hold. Words that are not obedient take on a certain humor; images rub against one another, fail to align, and blind spots emerge. A hole opens beneath my feet, and again I cling. This repeats.

Short Part
When I put it on from the right, it is too long.
When I put it on from the left, it is too short.

November 2025
Michi Suwa

Michi Suwa was born in 1980 in Kanagawa, Japan where she currently works and lives. She received her M.F.A. in Painting at Tama Art University, Tokyo.

Suwa has presented her work in: solo show “PANTALOON" at KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo, 2026; solo show “pantaloon" at Gallery21yo-j, Tokyo, 2026; “Elsewhen, Elsewhere" at Art Intelligence Global, Hong Kong, 2025; “Blooming show by KAYOKOYUKI" at OIL by Bijutsutecho Gallery, Tokyo, 2025; solo show “Floor Plan" at Galleria Finarte, Aichi, 2024; solo show “project N 86" at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, 2022; “Letters, Lights, Travels on the Street (Bokura ga tabi ni deruriyuu) Curated by Jeffrey Rosen" at NOWHERE, New York, 2022; "Onsen Confidential" at KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo, 2022; "Heliotrope" at Shouonji temple, Tokyo, 2022; "Rolling kites, Falling water" at AZUMATEI PROJECT, Kanagawa, 2020; "VOCA 2020" at The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, 2020; "TAMAVIVANTⅱ Dissémination" at Art-Theque gallery/Tama Art University, Tokyo, 2018; "Paintings Here and Now" at Fucyu Art Museum, Tokyo, 2018; "Temporary construction and Stardust" at A-things, Tokyo, 2016; and "Tactile sensation of action and thinking of repetition" at The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, 2011.

http://michisuwa.jp