FRIEZE SEOUL 2026

Hiramatsu’s paintings begin without predetermined motifs. Rather than starting from a fixed idea, he works through a process of identifying where chance and necessity converge — allowing figures to surface from backgrounds and brushstrokes that initially appear unrelated. By layering oil paint, acrylic, and wax, he builds a surface with a density and texture that no single medium could achieve alone — one where deliberate judgment meets serendipitous accident, and images slowly emerge from colors and textures responding to each other. He has described his creative process as an exploration of existence without purpose.

Takeda’s paintings, similarly beginning with haphazard brushstrokes, evoke the imagery of accidental stains or scars. The memories and sensory character of the rural forests of his childhood surface not only through sight but through sound, smell, and touch. He often likens the act of painting to an excavation, working as if to uncover an unconscious realm that has been lost through verbalization and classification. He moves back and forth between distant scales and categories, letting forms and textures rhyme with one another until something, whether an object, a rhythm, or a sound, becomes legible within the layers of strokes and drips.

Both artists’ paintings emerge from a dialogue with paint shaped by spontaneity and coincidence and chance, layering material to unearth images that exist somewhere between the figurative and the abstract. Neither works toward a predetermined image; in both practices, motifs emerge gradually through a process of trial and error, and remain open to further shifting even after they have assumed a recognizable shape, with their final form reached only once the struggle between at the point where intention gives way to and serendipity has played out. What results are two distinct visual languages built from a shared method: painting as a way of finding an image, rather than depicting one. The presentation will include the artists’ most recent paintings, alongside elements of installation and sculpture that reflect their respective processes and worldviews.

This presentation for Frieze Seoul 2026 will consist of approximately 20 works by the two artists.