Fireworks, Part 1

Kazuhito Kawai, Kinjo, Kazuma Koike, Joji Nakamura, Andre Walker, Mayumi Yamase

The Fridge is delighted to present Fireworks, the inaugural exhibition at its new space.

Presented in two parts, Fireworks brings together artists based in Japan and New York, working across painting, works on paper, textiles, and ceramics. The exhibition features both ongoing collaborators of The Fridge and two artists presenting their work with the gallery for the first time.

With Fireworks, The Fridge continues its commitment to introducing emerging voices from Japan to a wider international audience, while creating a dialogue with distinctive local talents and previously unseen works from New York.

Kazuhito Kawai (b. 1984, Ibaraki, Japan) is an artist primarily working with ceramics. He received his BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London, and graduated from Kasama College of Ceramic Art. His sculptural practice explores desire, fiction, and fluctuating identity, drawing on influences including 1990s Harajuku culture, street fashion, and mass media. Kawai has presented solo exhibitions at Kotaro Nukaga in Tokyo and Steve Turner Gallery in Los Angeles. His work is held in public and private collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Crafts Museum, the Spencer Museum of Art, the Takahashi Ryutaro Collection, and the Loewe Collection.

Mayumi Yamase is a Tokyo-based artist who creates captivating pieces through the skillful use of colors and organic shapes. Her aim is to achieve the ultimate balance in composition through the interplay of sharp and gentle tones, textures, shapes, and the empty space. Her works transport the viewer to harmonious formations featuring components of flora, geometry, and abstract anatomy that engage in an infinite visual dialogue. Mayumi's drawings, paintings, and 3D forms possess a profound sense of strength, suggesting elements of all living things. Her artistic talent has been showcased in London, Singapore, and throughout Japan. She has collaborated with brands such as Comme des Garçons and Nike among others.

Andre Walker, a London-born, New York-raised Designer, Creative Director, and Artist, has built a distinguished career in fashion design, and mixed media art. Renowned for his purist vision, he crafts hypnotic dreamscapes through mesmerizing sketches and watercolors, blending modernism with boldness and ethereality. Discovered in his teens by legendary street photographer Bill Cunningham, Andre was featured in publications such as The New York Times and Details Magazine, alongside Azzedine Alaia and Thierry Mugler. He later became a regular mention in The Andy Warhol Diaries. A recipient of the prestigious ANDAM prize and an Honorary Doctorate from the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco, Andre has always followed an unconventional path. Rejecting the rigid fashion calendar, he embraces a selective, authentic approach, earning the admiration of industry icons like Rei Kawakubo, Kim Jones, and Virgil Abloh. His notable collaborations include Comme des Garçons, Dover Street Market, Yves Salomon, Louis Vuitton, and Marc Jacobs. His exhibitions, such as The Casual Pleasure of Disappointment at Thaddaeus Ropac and Non Existent Patterns at the Louvre, highlight his artistic depth. Andre continues to make waves, appearing in Bottega Veneta's S/S 20 campaign and Ten Men magazine. His latest works were showcased in the multimedia installation Studio Visit Exhibition (February 2024), The Summer Wall at The Fridge (July 2024), and The Group Show at Untitled Art Fair Miami Beach (December 2024). In 2025, Andre Walker was awarded the prestigious Isabel Toledo Board of Directors' Tribute from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).

Kazuma Koike was born in 1980 and lives in Osaka, Japan. Koike spent his childhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, attended high school in Barcelona, Spain, and graduated from the Department of Sculpture, College of Art at Nihon University in Tokyo. The works of Spanish sculptor Josép Clarà has inspired him to follow suit. Growing up in a multi-cultural environment, Koike is interested in "Shinbutsu-Shugo", a mix between Japan's native Shinto beliefs and Chinese Buddhism. Koike visited numerous temples where their architecture, gardens, and sculptures became his inspiration. Koike started his first attempt at deconstructionism sculpture by compiling various dismantled found objects, removing their physical meaning, and reforming them into a sculpture. In the recent decade, Koike created most artworks by mixing images from different spaces and time, creating "fictional ancient artifacts" as if they do not belong to any era of recorded history. Motifs of divinity, big cats, plants, and pineapples repeatedly appear in Koike's works. He aims at the state where "different elements coexist in harmony". He once joked that future scholars from 2000 years later will discover a whole new culture from his buried works. Koike's notable recent shows include Cadet Capela (Paris, 2023), Omuro Museum (Mie, 2021), two-person shows at Aishonanzuka Gallery with Jordy Kerwick (Hong Kong, 2024), and with Djordje Ozbolt (Hong Kong, 2023), as well as HAGD Contemporary with Henrik Godsk (Aalborg, 2023).

Born in 1974, Joji Nakamura currently lives and works in Yokohama, Japan. Joji Nakamura paints with his hands using acrylic, gesso, graphite and ink on canvas. His extruded faces are instantly recognizable. Nakamura's dynamic strokes transform into his own rendition of a classic portrait, a figure painting or a surreal landscape created with his body. He has held exhibitions in Paris, the Netherlands, Taiwan, and Japan. In recent years, Nakamura added colors to the monotone repertoire paintings of his early years, presenting portraits and still life pieces in soft blotchy hues. Past shows include Kaplan Projects in Mallorca, Peter Augustus Gallery in Dallas, Zierher Smith in Nashville, Galerie Mikiko Fabiani in Paris, and Scooters For Peace in Tokyo.

Kinjo (b. 1990, Japan) is currently based in Tokyo. His work is characterized by the great influence of American culture and symbolism whilst he was growing up in Okinawa, a prefecture island of Japan. The eyes are set against the backdrop of his own fear and express how cultural and consumerist symbols can permeate the minds of the young and susceptible. The paintings presented in 'Not See It Even' are influenced by symbolic notions, translated landscapes taken from Kinjo's personal experience of walking around his local environment. The canvas can be seen as cut outs of exterior walls or billboards, old factories and wide rivers, giving you a sense of the time and environmental changes deposited within a city. Adding a layer of not only real but perceived physicality to Kinjo's paintings. Kinjo's work has been exhibited worldwide, including solo exhibitions at Yiri Arts in Taipei, Moosey Art in Norwich, and Parcel in Tokyo.