Beauty in Remains and Transience

AIFA’s second winter 2025 exhibition in Verbier presents the works of Kineta Kunimatsu and Kouzo Takeuchi, two Japanese artists exploring common themes of creation, decay, and transformation through distinct materials.

Kineta Kunimatsu was born in Sapporo, Hokkaido, in 1977. He graduated from Tama Art University’s Department of Sculpture in 2001. Since 2002, Kineta has been an active member of the Tobiu Art Community in Shiraoi, Hokkaido. His artistic practice includes sculpture, painting, and installation. His work focuses on landscapes’ boundaries, such as horizons and mountain ranges, often using local materials to create artworks intimately connected to the natural environment of his native place. Although inspired by Hokkaido’s landscapes, viewers are invited to project their respective memories and emotions when looking at Kineta’s works.

Kineta Kunimatsu’s wooden sculptures and paintings celebrate the beauty of nature and are a reminder of what once existed, while Kouzo Takeuchi’s ceramic sculptures reflect the inevitable cycle of creation and destruction throughout human history.

Kouzo Takeuchi comes from Hyogo Prefecture, where he was born in 1977. In 2001, he graduated from the Osaka University of Arts, majoring in ceramics, and then studied at the Tajimi City Pottery Design and Technical Center in Gifu. Kouzo is well known for his innovative approach, exploring the balance between construction and destruction through his Modern Remains series, featuring intentionally broken geometric ceramic structures that reflect themes of decay and impermanence. He also incorporates materials such as metal, wood, stone, and lacquer into his work, pushing the frontiers of ceramic art and challenging conventional ideas of perfection and imperfection.

The two artists explore natural, built, or conceptual boundaries, challenging traditional concepts. They depict how time changes things and capture the beauty of landscapes or the remains of human creation, how the idea of perishing, whether through natural processes or human influence, can also be a source of inspiration and beauty.