Press Release

Baró is pleased to announce its participation in The Armory Show 2026. For this year’s edition, the gallery presents Japanese artist Ayako Rokkaku (b. 1982, Chiba, Japan) in her debut at the fair, following her recent solo exhibition Playful, Stormy, Continuing at Baró in São Paulo.

The presentation brings together a new series of nine paintings on cardboard and canvas. Painting directly with her fingers, Rokkaku translates bodily movement into compositions that shift between gestural abstraction and figurative elements drawn from Japan’s kawaii culture. Her works bring together opposing qualities—irony and gentleness, aggressiveness and delicacy—allowing tension to emerge through otherwise familiar and playful imagery.

Self-taught, Rokkaku began painting in the early 2000s, developing a practice rooted in intuition, immediacy, and the physical act of painting. Her work has since been presented internationally, with solo exhibitions at institutions including the Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art, Kunsthal Rotterdam, Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, and, most recently, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. Her work is held in institutional collections including the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Museum Voorlinden, and the Gunma Museum of Art, among others.

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About the Artist

Ayako Rokakku’s artistic process involves an instinctive and performative approach, as she uses her bare hands to apply acrylic paint, translating the motion of her body onto the canvas. True to her distinctive technique, she moulds figures with the tips of her fingers, whether on canvas, through glass, or in bronze.Rokkaku’s visual language seamlessly shifts between elusive abstract formations and figurative elements, drawing inspiration from the kawaii culture (Japanese for cute) and capturing the boundless imagination of a child. Rokkaku is known for her colourful canvases populated by imaginary landscapes and fantastical characters. Indeed, Rokkaku stages live painting performances in contexts where her work will be exhibited, bringing the dialogue between the audience and artist as close to one another as the touch that animates her inspired practice.

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