ROOM 15　NAOYA INOSE

Naoya Inose is a painter born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1988. A graduate of the Oil Painting Course at the Tokyo University of the Arts, he is currently based in London.
His major solo exhibitions include Romantic Depression (The Club, Tokyo, 2020). His major group exhibitions include DOMANI: The Art of Tomorrow (National Art Center, Tokyo, 2020), and his works are in the collections of the Takahashi Collection and Fondazione Benetton. Inose is interested in the imbalanced relationship between nature and humanity, and his creative process incorporates repeated research, including actual on-site visits.
His paintings juxtapose intricately detailed landscapes with abstract worlds, hinting at the problems that arise around us and the social and environmental issues we must confront in contemporary society.

Inose wanted all the works presented in this room to “add an element of play while helping guests sleep soundly and enjoy a comfortable stay”. Inose sees a commonality between television colour bars, as “perfectly still fields of colour” on the television screen, and landscape painting. In one sense, these bars are “landscape paintings of the digital world” for modern times; at the same time, their role as images to be broadcast after the day’s scheduled programmes are over links them to “the end of the day, and bedtime”.
In Sleep well, Inose juxtaposes television colour bars with French mountains of France, which he visited for research purposes. As the title suggests, he painted it so that guests staying in this room to enjoy these beautiful mountains at day’s end as a prelude to sound sleep. The scene also recalls Mount Akagi, one of Gunma’s best-known peaks, also visible from the Shiroiya Hotel. The work seems to engender the tranquillity that comes from sleeping surrounded by mountains.
Almost home 2 Flat version is also newly created for Shiroiya Hotel. The pool represents a safe, well-kept environment, and the work is intended to make the room feel as comfortable as home. The flat image also suggests that the viewer avoid complicating or overthinking things and adopt a “flat” perspective, open and free of preconceptions.
Finally, the two paintings VHS Blue and VHS Yellow offer a playful puzzle so that guests can “enjoy the art while looking at it”.The illustrations of a salmon, an orange, and a tomato on the VHS labels are a hint. By examining the colours closely, the viewer can decipher a six-letter keyword related to the concept of this hotel. It’s a rather tricky puzzle, but we hope you will enjoy solving it during your stay.