ZHOU Hao × KUNII Keiko

October 3 (Sat) – October 25 (Sun), 2026

Artland Gallery is pleased to present ZHOU Hao × KUNII Keiko, on view from October 3 through October 25, 2026.

Beyond the Footsteps

Following Zhou Hao’s passing in 2023, Artland Gallery presented ZHOU Hao: Tracing His Footsteps in 2024.

The exhibition traced the development of his work, from his early prints to the works of his later years. When the exhibition ended, we felt that we had presented, as fully as we could, the arc of Zhou Hao’s artistic journey.

But was that really so?

As we began thinking about this two-person exhibition with Kunii Keiko, the question returned.

One of the impulses behind the exhibition came from the preface to Manyo Luster by Ian Hideo Levy.

Levy writes of the luster of these thirteen-hundred-year-old poems, a quality that makes them seem as if they had been written only yesterday.

After reading these words, we found ourselves looking again at a 2006 oil painting by Zhou Hao, in which a moon-like form seems to float.

Manyo Luster — the luster of the Man’yōshū.

If a work can retain such freshness across time, what, then, is the
luster of Zhou Hao’s work?

After Tracing His Footsteps, this was the question that emerged.

This exhibition is not simply a juxtaposition of works from the past and works of the present.

In his later years, Zhou Hao and Kunii Keiko continued to work side by side.
Now their works come together once again in the same space.

For her new work in this exhibition, Kunii has used canvases that the two artists had purchased, intending that either of them might paint on them — canvases that Zhou Hao never had the opportunity to use.

On them, she has painted a large table.

A place where someone might arrive.
A place where people may gather, objects may be placed, and time may be shared.

Zhou Hao’s work and the work Kunii continues to create now meet in the same space. Through this encounter, perhaps something that has remained unseen until now may begin to emerge.

It is from this thought that the exhibition has taken shape.

KUNII Keiko: On the Works in This Exhibition

In the later years of Zhou Hao’s life, we always painted side by side.
A corner of our living room was our shared studio.

Even though we worked next to each other, we were each so absorbed in our own paintings that, surprisingly, the other person’s presence was never distracting. I painted sitting in a chair, while he always painted standing up. He placed a small easel on top of two stacked map cases, adjusting it to the height of his eyes.

And whenever we finished painting, we both put everything away — not only the paints, but also the easels and canvases — and left the room clean and tidy.
That never changed, right up until the very end.

The year before he died, Zhou Hao and I discussed it and bought more than twenty thick canvases, each measuring 60 × 45 cm, intending that either of us could use them.

Zhou Hao loved looking at them stacked by the window. He seemed so pleased by the sight that he wrote on Facebook, “I find myself simply gazing at them.”

But in the end, he never used them.

They remained stacked there, still white. But when there are blank canvases waiting to be painted, I thought, there is only one thing to do: paint them.

For this exhibition, I have used eight of those canvases together to paint a large table.

A table that feels somehow loose and easy.
A place where someone might come.

I have also made six other works depicting various things on a tabletop.

The table is a place of happiness.
And I feel that, from there, I may someday connect with something unseen.

Zhou Hao kept telling me, until the very end, “Paint good paintings.”

So I always intended to continue painting even after I was alone. But for the first two years or so, even when I finally managed to paint a small work, it was truly painful. I often painted through tears.

I came to understand all over again that painting means facing one’s own heart.

It is only recently that I have finally been able to paint properly again.

And I still feel that he is painting beside me.

KUNII Keiko